LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 






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Shell 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, j 



WHY WE EXPECT 



JESUS NOW 



By JOHN MASON 




CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

1893 



JVASH^y/ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, trj the year 1893, 
by Flerrjiqg if. tfeuell Company, in the Office of the 
Librarian of Corjgress at Washington, D. C, /fil rights 
reserved, 



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WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 



THEEE is a sweetly solemn joy in the thought 
that in all probability, as concerns the great 
majority of those of the Church who shall read 
these pages, the eyes that read will be eyes that 
shall behold the appearing of that Blessed One for 
whom we watch and wait — our Lord and Saviour, 
Jesus Christ. It has been refreshment by the way 
to read His promises of coming again, and we have 
found comfort in praying for the hastening of the 
time, and our spirits have already risen Heaven- 
ward as we sang together of His return — but at 
last to see His face, that will be joy inexpressible. 
"When the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." 
Yet, as we stand in faith before the opening gates 
of Paradise, restored with all the bountifulness of 
Him who gave Himself — the Heavenly given back 
for the earthly, the many homes in the Father's 
house for that one garden, the very life of God for 
that which was kept from the tree of life lest it 
should continue forever — as we stand thus, about 
to behold Him who is our Lord, as well as our 
Hope and Desire, and think of our often disobe- 
dience and much unprofitableness, the old cry well- 
nigh comes to our lips, < < Depart from me, for I 
am a sinful man, Lord." Happy are we that it 

[3] 



4 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

is ours instead to utter that later cry, by which 
the Bride is known by the heavenly Bridegroom, 
' ' Lord, Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest 
that I love Thee." 

Before giving reasons for our present expecta- 
tion of the Lord Jesus, I think it well to give a 
short statement of what is now generally accepted 
by the Church as the teaching of Scripture con- 
cerning what is commonly called, the Second Com- 
ing. Do I also need to define the Church ? Can 
I mean anything else than all those, and only 
those, who, having been born anew by the Holy 
Spirit, are by that indwelling Holy Spirit united to 
Him who is l ' head over all things to the Church, 
which is His body, the 'fullness of Him who filleth 
all in all " ? 

About the same number of years before Christ 
that we are after, that is, about the year 1900 
b. c, God tested the faith of Abraham in the 
offering up of Isaac, and gave him this promise : 
1 l By Myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because 
thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld 
thy son, thine only son : that in blessing I will 
bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy 
seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand 
which is upon the sea shore ; and thy seed shall 
possess the gate of his enemies ; and in thy seed 
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed ; be- 
cause thou hast obeyed M} r voice." And so Abra- 
ham became " the father of all them that believe," 
whether they be the children of Law or of Grace. 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 5 

The fulfillment of this promise (looking yet to a 
fulfillment in fullness beyond all powers of descrip- 
tion), has been in that harmony with the similitudes 
employed which characterizes everything Divine. 

First, " as the sand which is upon the sea shore " 
— an earthly people, a nation with defined limits 
and unvarying characteristics, whose blessings were 
earthly, children by natural descent, whose mount- 
ain is Sinai — the Jew. This second figure was 
fulfilled first, but will be last again, according to 
God's order, in its chief fulfillment, in the day when 
King Jesus shall sit on the throne of David, < < and 
men shall be blessed in Him ; all nations shall call 
Him happy." " They shall bless Him all the day 
long." (See Psalm 72.) 

Second, " as the stars of the heaven" — a spir- 
itual people, gathered out of ' ' every tribe, and 
tongue, and people, and nation," as varied as the 
stars, blessed ' i with every spiritual blessing in the 
heavenly places in Christ," children born of the 
Spirit — the Church, whose hill is Calvary, as dead 
to the world, and whose mountain is Olivet, as one 
with Him who thence ascended in resurrection life 
and thither comes again. 

And so, from Abraham onward, for about 1900 
years the lamp of testimony was committed to an 
earthly people, under a Dispensation of Law. 
That Dispensation ended in utter failure. Calvary 
saw the extinction of all national testimony. 
Again, for nearly 1900 years, has testimony been 
committed, under a Dispensation of Grace, to a 



6 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

spiritual people, whose seven lamp -stands, bearing 
the light of the Holy Spirit, have in their midst 
Jesus, and whose angels are the seven stars in His 
right hand. 

It being evident that the Lord Jesus Christ has 
promised, both to the Church and to the Jew, that 
He will come again, we may well conclude, even if 
Scriptural proof was wanting, and just because of 
the unvarying appropriateness and harmony of all 
God's workings — that the coming of the Lord for 
the Church would be of so different a complexion 
from His return to the Jews as to be a contrast. 
It must be as diverse as Law is from Grace, as the 
earthly is from the heavenly, and as kingly rule is 
from such closeness of relationship as of " the 
head" to " the body." The character of the com- 
ing can never be the same to subjects as to associ- 
ates, for we are represented as sitting with Christ 
Jesus in the heavenly places, companions of His 
present rejection. All this is equivalent to saying 
that the event cannot be one and the same to both 
the Church and the Jew. Attempts to blend the 
two phases of the coming, like all other attempted 
blendings of the matters of the two dispensations, 
have produced in our religious literature and teach- 
ings, a thick fog where there should have been a 
clear sky, and distortions where there should have 
been the very beauty of Heaven. 

Scripture is very clear as to : 1. A manifesta- 
tion to the Church, a coming of the Lord to the air 
only, to receive the Church to Himself. 2. A 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 7 

coming to the Jews, to the earth, to reign in 
Jerusalem as their King. Before considering the 
first aspect, with which we are in the succeeding 
pages chiefly concerned, let us look briefly at the 
second, which will follow, after some short in- 
terval. " The Jew first," was God's order. "I 
was not sent," says our Lord, "but unto the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the first 
became last, of which reversal of order Simeon 
prophesied : " A light for revelation to the Gentiles, 
and the glory of Thy people Israel." 

THE COMING TO THE JEW. 

Probably the concluding words of our Lord's pub- 
lic ministry were these : < ' Jerusalem, Jerusalem 
— killing the prophets and stoning them that are 
sent to her ! how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a bird gathers her own 
young ones under her wings, and ye would not ! 
Behold, your house is abandoned to you ! For I 
say to you, You shall not see Me henceforth till you 
shall say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of 
the Lord." After His resurrection the Lord Jesus 
was not seen except by His own followers, and to 
this day there is a blindness of heart upon the Jews, 
so that they see not the Glory of Israel. And just 
as, long ago, they tried to enter the promised land 
without the Lord, and were smitten before their 
enemies, so to-day many of the Jews are attempt- 
ing to return to their abandoned house without 
Him who alone can, with His overshadowing wings, 



8 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

make it once more a home for His birds. There 
comes to the Jew that terrible season of persecu- 
tion and affliction, prophesied of as " the time of 
Jacob's trouble," and of which they have already 
had an earnest. Russia is clearly shown as the 
chief persecuting power, the Prince of Rosh, 
Meshech, and Tubal, of Ezekiel 38 and 39 (R. V.), 
being recognized by expositors as equivalent to 
Emperor of all the Russias, i. e. , Russia, Moscow 
(Muscovy) and Tobolsk (Siberia). Even now be- 
fore our eyes God is preparing His answer to Paul's 
question, ' ' Did God cast off His people ? God for- 
bid. " "He that scattered Israel will gather him. " 
We see but movements as yet, telling us that the 
Day of the Lord draws nigh, spoken of always in 
Scripture as a time of terror, when God will break 
His long silence, and His judgments will be in the 
earth ; and when His ancient people will be gath- 
ered, as a flock gathers together in a storm. 

< < I will show wonders in the heavens and in the 
earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The 
sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon 
into blood, before the great and terrible day of the 
Lord come." Joel. 2 : 30, 31. 

" But who may abide the day of His coming? 
and who shall stand when He appeareth ? for He 
is like a refiner's fire." Mai. 3 : 2. 

" Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: 
a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very 
tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to 
the heavens above, and to the earth, that He may 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 9 

judge His people : Gather My saints together unto 
Me ; those that have made a covenant with Me 
by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare His 
righteousness ; for God is judge Himself." Psalm 
50 : 3-6. 

1 < And it shall come to pass in that day, that I 
will seek to destroy all the nations that come 
against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the 
house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem, the spirit of grace and of supplication ; and 
they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced : 
and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth 
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for 
him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." 
Zech. 12 :9, 10. 

« ' Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against 
those nations, as when He fought in the day of 
battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon 
the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on 
the east . . . and the Lord my God shall come, and 
all the holy ones with Thee. . . . And the Lord 
shall be King over all the earth." Zech. 14 : 3, 
4, 5, 9. 

Standing upon this same Mount of Olives, the 
disciples gaze steadfastly into Heaven after the 
ascending Jesus, as the cloud receives Him out of 
their sight, and two angels stand beside them and 
say, < < This Jesus, who is received up from you 
into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as you 
beheld Him going into Heaven." These disciples 
had asked Jesus a little before, < < Lord, dost Thou 



10 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? " and 
He had replied, " It is not for you to know times 
or seasons, which the Father has set within His 
own authority. But you shall receive power, when 
the Holy Spirit is come upon you ; and you shall 
be My witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the 
earth." And when the witnessing is completed 
and the mission of the Spirit is accomplished, then 
shall God again reckon earth's time from Jerusa- 
lem, and there shall be fulfilled that which was 
spoken by the angel Gabriel concerning the Lord 
Jesus : ' ' He shall be great, and shall be called the 
Son of the Most High. And the Lord God shall 
give to Him the throne of His father David ; and 
He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever ; 
and of His Kingdom there shall be no end." 

1 ' Behold, He cometh with the clouds ! and 
every eye shall see Him, and they who pierced 
Him ; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn 
over Him. Even so, Amen." 

THE COMING FOR THE CHURCH. 

To him who can receive the truth, unbiased 
by preconceived theories, it must be evident how 
utterly diverse from the foregoing, as regards 
character and localit}^ is the New Testament de- 
scription of our Lord's coming for His Church — 
gathering to Himself the harvest of Grace, ere the 
judgment-storm breaks, of the " great and very 
terrible " Day of the Lord. How different, con- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 11 

sequently, is the attitude of mind enjoined upon us, 
whose privilege it is to wait and watch. 

1 < Let not your heart be troubled : believe in 
God ; believe also in Me. In My Father's house 
are many homes. If it were not so, I would have 
told you : for I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come 
again, and will receive you to Myself ; so that 
where I am, you may be also." John 14 : 1-4. 

"I will not leave you orphans : I come to you." 
John 14 : 18. 

1 1 You turned to God from idols, to serve a liv- 
ing and true God, and to wait for His Son from 
Heaven." 1 Thess. 1 : 9, 10. This epistle, from 
which also the next quotation is taken, was written 
about the year 52, and is the oldest of the New 
Testament writings, unless perhaps, the gospel by 
Matthew. 

< < But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, 
concerning them that fall asleep ; that you sorrow 
not even as the rest, who have no hope. For if 
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so 
those also who are fallen asleep in Jesus will God 
bring with Him. For this we say to you by the 
word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are 
left to the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise 
precede those who are fallen asleep. For the Lord 
Himself shall descend from Heaven, with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the 
trumpet of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first : then we who are alive, who are left, shall 



12 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

together with them be caught up in the clouds, to 
meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be 
with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another 
with these words." 1 Thess. 4 : 13-18. 

1 1 Behold, I tell you a mystery : We shall not all 
sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet : 
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 
1 Cor. 15 :51, 52. 

' { Our citizenship is in Heaven : from whence 
also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ : 
who shall fashion anew the body of our humilia- 
tion, that it may be conformed to the body of His 
gloiy, according to the working whereby He is 
able even to subject all things to Himself." Phil. 
3 :20, 21. 

< ' When Christ, who is our life, shall be mani- 
fested, then shall you also with Him be manifested 
in glory." Col. 3 : 4. 

1 < We should live . . . looking for the blessed 
hope and the appearing of the glory of our great 
God and Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus 2 : 12, 13. 

1 i Christ also, having been once offered to bear 
the sins of many, shall appear a second time, 
apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto 
salvation." Hebrews 9 : 28. 

< < You, who by the power of God are guarded 
through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed 
in the last time. Wherein you greatly rejoice." 
1 Peter 1 : 5, 6. 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 13 

< < Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, 
be sober, and set your hope perfectly on the grace 
that is being brought to you at the revelation of 
Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1 : 13. 

c i When the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, 
you shall receive the crown of glory that fades not 
away." 1 Peter 5:4. 

< < And now, little children, abide in Him ; that, • 
if He shall be manifested, we may have boldness, 
and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." 

1 John 2 : 28. 

' ' Beloved, now are we children of God, and it 
is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We 
know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be 
like Him ; for we shall see Him even as He is. 
And every one who has this hope set on Him puri- 
fies himself, even as He is pure." 1 John 3:2, 3. 

< < Hold fast till I come. " Rev. 2 : 25. 

' ' I come quickly ; hold fast that which thou 
hast, that no one take thy crown." Rev. 3 : 11. 

' l Yea : I come quickly. Amen : come, Lord 
Jesus." Rev. 22 : 20. 

These passages speak not of the omnipotent 
King of kings driving His enemies before Him as 
the dust flies before the tempest, but of the tender 
Saviour, gathering to Himself the children of the 
travail of His soul, and turning Grace into Glory. 
It is no Day of Fear, but the Day of Love. There 
is no fear in Love, neither can any dwell in her 
abiding-place, < l prepared " through these past cent- 
uries by Love's wounded hands and now revealed 



14 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

— Home. When ' ' all those who have loved His 
appearing " shall be caught up to meet in the air 
the King of their hearts, what a strange literalness 
there will be in this ' phase of the ever- widening 
fulfillment of that prophecy made under the shadow 
of the cross : " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto Myself. " 

THE WORLD'S COMING SUBJECT OF INTEREST. 

We understand the interest of the Church. 318 
times is this great truth of the Second Coming 
mentioned in the New Testament, which thus gives 
it a greater prominence than any other truth. In 
the epistles it . is referred to 67 times, and the 
atonement only 57 times. For the love that took 
our place and died, is dearer still as the love that 
comes again. And if this truth had such a hold 
on the heart and mind of the Church of the first 
century, how should it possess us who already hear 
the music of our Lord's footsteps ! 

But to the world also, interested as it is in a mul- 
titude of subjects, chiefly concerning its captivity to 
self and to the devil, there is by comparison only 
this one subject, towering above all others in awful 
interest, such as might be felt by those who, living 
carelessly on the slopes of a burning mountain, 
which had been quiet for centuries, should behold 
a column of smoke arising. Only a cloud ; but 
to-morrow the mountain will quake, and there will 
be flame and burning destruction. Present interest 
is alone safe, for thus there is a chance of escape. 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 15 

It will not be wise for the world to wait for the day 
when very terror will make men with crowns on 
their heads, and others holding what the world 
calls " high official positions," " hide themselves 
in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains ; 
and they say to the mountains and to the rocks, 
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him who 
sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the 
Lamb : for the great day of their wrath is come ; 
and who is able to stand ? " A change, truly, that 
will be from the day when the crowned head 
mocked the Lamb of God, silent before His shear- 
ers, and when the high official consigned Him to 
the cross. 

The world may well tremble. It will be con- 
ceded by all, that the Church exerts a restraining 
power against the universal supremacy of evil. 
And this restraining power proceeds from the Holy 
Spirit, dwelling within every individual member. 
When the Church is gone, what then is left in the 
way of restraint ? Not the Holy Spirit, for He, as 
a special presence on the earth, is inseparable from 
the Church. He who indwells cannot be separated 
from those whom He indwells. He by whom every 
member of the mystic Body of Christ was formed 
and is bound together, must be and is to be, accord- 
ing to our Lord's promise, an abiding presence 
"for ever." And even as He came to the Church 
at Pentecost, descending from Heaven, with a sound 
as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and resting 
upon each one as with tongues of fire — so, when 



16 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

the Spirit shall again, as before the Flood, cease to 
strive with the world, the Church will be carried 
with Him in His Heavenward return, translated 
like Elijah, on the whirlwind and with the fiery 
glory, to meet her Lord in the air, and to be for 
ever with Him. Thus, when the Spirit has spoken 
His last to the Churches, even to Laodicea, and we 
see in verse 5 of the next chapter (the 4th of the 
Revelation), the " seven lamps of fire burning 
before the throne, which are the seven Spirits 
of God," it is equivalent to saying that the 
seven lamp-stands of the Church are also before 
the throne. For the Church, like John, who in 
the Spirit tarried till the Lord came, has seen the 
" door opened in Heaven," and has heard the 
trumpet-call, "Come up hither!" and has been 
caught up in the Spirit to the sheltered standpoint 
of glory. I say not "safer" standpoint, for 
Grace is as safe as Glory ; but the Lord always 
gathers out His own ere He begins His judgment 
work. And from the glory standpoint, the Church 
beholds what "must come to pass hereafter" — 
open judgments on the world ; the keynote of 
transition from the reign of Grace, now over, 
being given in verse 5 — " lightnings and voices 
and thunders." The first two verses of this 4th 
chapter, which immediately succeed the last word 
to the last of the churches, are thus a picture of 
the rapture of the Church. 

We are therefore shut up to the conclusion that 
when the Church is taken away, there will be upon 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 17 

earth no restraint from wickedness. God will 
never leave Himself without a witness, but it will 
be as the witness of a voice crying in a moral 
wilderness. Restraint will be gone as much as in 
the days before the flood, when men gave them- 
selves up to self -gratification — ' < eating and drink- 
ing, marrying and giving in marriage." What can 
it mean when the salt of the earth is removed, 
with the Spirit who gives it savor, but swift cor- 
ruption, both in the ecclesiastical world, and in 
the world void of all forms of religion? What can 
it mean, when the flood-gates are opened, but a 
mad rush of lawlessness — a shooting of Niagara. 
< ' The mystery of lawlessness doth already work : 
only there is one who restrains now, until He be 
taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed 
the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay 
with the breath of His mouth, and bring to nought 
by the manifestation of His coming ; even he, 
whose coming is according to the working of Satan 
with all power and signs and lying wonders, and 
with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that 
are perishing ; because they received not the love 
of the truth, that they might be saved." 2 Thess. 
2 : 7-10. " Know this, that in the last days griev- 
ous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of 
self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, 
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without 
natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without 
self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, head- 
strong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than 
. % 



18 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but 
having denied the power thereof." 2 Tim. 3 : 1-5. 
And all this without restraint. The faithful wit- 
ness will have gone, that pleaded with the lover of 
self ; the voice of conscience will be silent, that 
once hampered the lover of money ; and those 
buildings that are called "churches," rid of their 
every troublesome " member," will become a Baby- 
lonish < < habitation of devils, and a hold of every 
unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and 
hateful bird. " Already are many of these churches 
lower sunk than the Temple in the last days of 
national Jewish religiousness. That had become a 
house of merchandise, where sheep, oxen, and 
doves were sold. In these, for so much, they sell 
you the right to worship God on a certain spot ; at 
their so-called altars, woman sells herself to man, in 
the bargain of modern marriage ; and the church 
fair far outrivals the Jewish " den of thieves." 

I know not if there were newspapers and maga- 
zines in the days before the flood. Probably there 
was a far higher civilization than is generally be- 
lieved. If there were newspapers, we can well 
believe that they would be filled with much the 
same matter as they are to-day — violence, greed, 
knavery, and folly, with scarcely a word that would 
remind the reader that he is in the midst of Chris- 
tendom : 3 columns to a prize fight, and 3 lines to 
a missionary meeting. And the magazines would 
be filled with able scientific articles, proving con- 
clusively the continuity of all things, and the in- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 19 

herent ability of mankind to go on to perfection. 
Highly amusing articles might sometimes appear 
on Noah and his ark, headed, " Cranks," or, " The 
man that knows more than we do." But " they 
knew not," our Lord sa}^s — " they knew not until 
the flood came, and took them all away ; so shall 
be the coming of the Son of man." It will again 
be the unexpected that will overtake the world. 
If its wise ones are questioned, they will give it as 
their sagacious opinion, that after many thousands 
of years there might be some crisis or catastrophe, 
" but it won't be in your lifetime or mine." The 
wish is father to the thought with the unprepared, 
specially with those who have l £ much goods laid 
up for many years," and who have just been saying 
to their souls, < l Take thine ease, eat, drink, be 
merry. " But when God's ' < this night " may darken 
down at any moment, — not the night of one poor 
fool, but the night of a world of them, — would it 
not be wisdom in our newspapers to devote at least 
as much attention to the Coming of the Lord as 
they do to the coming races, or the coming har- 
vest, or the coming elections ? And our magazine 
writers might draw attention to the fact that the 
recurrence of the unexpected is in strict accord 
with scientific principles and everyday experience. 
Paul pictures the whole creation as deeply con- 
cerned for the coming of the time when the Lord 
shall return and the Church with Him. < < The 
earnest expectation of the creation waits for the 
revealing of the sons of God. For the creation 



20 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by 
reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the 
creation itself also shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory 
of the children of God. For we know that the 
whole creation groans and travails in pain together 
until now." Rom. 8:19-22. The slime of the 
serpent is over the fairest flowers ; ' < there is 
sorrow on the sea ; it cannot be quiet ; " and the 
land is burdened with the defilements of sin, whose 
penalty has made it and the sea one great grave. 

Beneath the insane pleasures of the world, and its 
cravings for opiates, stimulants, position, and fame 
— lies the radical misery of the human heart. It 
needs God. And that man brings the best news 
to its darkness, sickness, and wretchedness, who 
tells the world that the dawn is nearing when the 
Sun of Righteousness shall ' ' arise with healing in 
His wings," even though there be a darkest hour 
before that dawn. For beyond that blackness of 
war, famine, and pestilence, is the Millennial glory, 
when ' l they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
and their spears into pruning hooks : nation shall 
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they 
learn war any more." " And the wolf shall dwell 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the 
fatling together ; and a little child shall lead 
them." "For the earth shall be full of the 
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
sea." 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 21 

And he brings the sweetest news to the Church 
who tells her : < < Behold, the Bridegroom ! Come 
ye forth to meet Him." For love ever desires 
presence, and the heart that loves the Lord, prays 
without ceasing that last prayer in the sacred 
volume, these concluding words of inspiration that 
suggestively pass into the final benediction, whose 
full glory of meaning will be seen when Jesus 
comes with outstretched arms to receive His own : 
< ; Amen : Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the 
Lord Jesus be with the saints. Amen. " 

With the best of all, do we begin the reasons for 
our present expectation : 

THE LORD'S OWN PROMISE. 

Just before that "Amen: Come, Lord Jesus," 
our Lord said, " Yea : I come quickly." But He 
has not come quickly, according to man's reckon- 
ing. Since these words were uttered, God has kept 
silence for 1800 years — His longest silence since 
the Creation. Some might say, in explanation, 
that the Church, being a Heavenly body, and hav- 
ing, according to Scripture, " the mind of Christ," 
and reckoned as a partner with Him in all things, 
must consider time only from the Heavenly stand- 
point — a thousand years being in the sight of the 
Lord of Heaven < < but as yesterday when it is past, 
and as a watch in the night." To us in childhood 
one year seems a lifetime ; but in middle age we 
look back from one Christmas to the last, as if it 
were but yesterday. And after all, what a short 



22 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 

time it is since our Lord walked in and out among 
us. I have talked with a relative who could tell 
me what his father told him concerning the rebel- 
lion in 1745 against the present English dynasty — 
thus bridging over about 150 years. Eleven more 
of such periods would bring us to the apostle John 
in his old age, to the very time, about the year 96, 
when that disciple whom Jesus loved heard these 
words from our Lord's lips : < ' Yea : I come 
quickly." 

About the year 68, Peter, in his second epistle, 
looks forward to " the last days, " when the ques- 
tion will be put, "Where is the promise of His 
coming ? " and finds it necessary, even at that 
early date, to give a word of caution to believers : 
1 ' But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one 
day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a 
thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack 
concerning His promise, as some count slackness." 
Thus, our Lord did not give His promise till long 
after this caution had been dictated by the Holy 
Spirit, so that the Church might read His l < I come 
quickly " in the light of the caution. 

Yet we can well believe that it was in the heart 
of the Lord Jesus to have come " quickly " accord- 
ing to the language of men, and not to have tarried 
for 1800 years. But the Church made it impos- 
sible. The promised return and heavenly rest 
were before her just as much as the promised land 
and earthly rest were before the Church in the 
wilderness ; and we can believe that it was the 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 23 

mind of the Lord that the primitive Church should 
enter into possession, just as it was His mind, 
about 3380 years ago, to have fulfilled His promise 
by taking His people straight from Egypt to the 
land flowing with milk and honey. But Canaan 
became undesirable in the eyes of Israel, through 
their false ideas both of the land and of their 
Saviour God, and in their hearts they turned back 
to Egypt. « < They were not able to enter in be- 
cause of unbelief." So it is written in Psalm 81 : 

" I am the Lord thy God, 
Which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt : 
Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. 
But My people hearkened not to My voice ; 
And Israel would none of Me." 

Therefore for forty years it was the punishment 
of the Church in the wilderness to have withheld 
from her the fulfillment of the promise, even till all 
that unbelieving generation saw death. There is 
a passage in the epistle to the Hebrews, in which 
the guilt of an offender under Law and an offender 
under Grace is contrasted, and it is asked concern- 
ing the latter, ' ' Of how much sorer punishment 
shall he be judged worthy ? " When we con- 
sider who it is who comes again ; the surpassing 
privileges, beauty, and joy of that return for us : 
and that our promised land is not so many square 
miles of earth, but an inheritance in Heaven, even 
the Heaven of Heavens, the very arms of God — 
for Jesus says, " I will receive you unto Myself : " 
would forty times forty years of wandering out of 



24 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

all sight and expectation of the promise, not be a 
light punishment ? 

The death of the apostle John about the year 
100, had no doubt a depressing effect on the faith 
of the faithful few who, amid rapidly increasing 
departure from the truth, still looked for the Lord's 
return. For it is evident that there was an expec- 
tation that He would come before John died ; and 
the apostle seeks to qualify that expectation in the 
last chapter of his gospel, which seems like an 
appendix thereto, and was probably written very 
shortly before his death. " Peter therefore seeing 
[John] says to Jesus, ' Lord, and what shall this 
man do ? ' Jesus says to him, < If I will that he 
tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow 
thou Me. ' This saying therefore went forth among 
the brethren, that that disciple should not die. 
Yet Jesus said not to him that he should not die ; 
but, i If I will that he tarry till I come, what is 
that to thee ? ' " 

About the year 324, the Cross was displayed on 
the banners of the Roman emperor, Constantine, 
announcing the alliance of professed Christianity 
with the State. This meant the demoralization 
and ruin of Christianity ; for history records then 
that open adulterous union of profession with the 
world, which has continued ever since under the 
name of Christendom. But long before Constan- 
tine's time, this leaven of wickedness was working, 
as we see from James 4:4: " Ye adulteresses 
[Ye who break your marriage vow to God], know 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 25 

ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity 
with God ? " Whatever hope and desire for the 
Lord's return may have lingered till the days of 
Constantine, must then have been practically extin- 
guished. A Christianity on good terms with the 
world could have no desire, but the very reverse ; 
and what had been to the early believers a < < blessed 
Hope," became an awesome Fear. And so things 
have continued till recent years. 

We conclude, therefore, that it has been impos- 
sible for the Lord to have come quickly, because 
of the unbelief and want of desire of His professed 
people. What bridegroom would come for a bride 
so careless or unbelieving that she had lost sight 
of the very fact that he was coming for her ; or, if 
remembering, interpreting the bridegroom's return 
as meaning death, and so looking upon it with fear 
and trembling : which perversion of scripture is 
testified to by our religious literature, by our 
hymns, and by the memories of most of us. What 
wonder that " the Bridegroom tarried," and that 
the bones of an unbelieving generation have strewn 
this wilderness of their wanderings of heart. 

* < Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! . . . how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a 
bird gathers her own young ones under her wings, 
and ye would not. " Now the " gathering together " 
of the Church, spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:1, is the 
same Greek as the above gathering together : ' l We 
beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto 



26 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

Him." Surely the Lord's heart is specially warm 
to the Church, which is his body, to whom He 
gave the promise, < ' I will not leave you orphans : 
I come to you." Is it then only of Jerusalem that 
it has been true, < < How often would I have gath- 
ered you together," and that the Lord has been 
compelled to add, " And you would not " ? 

The wise, as well as the foolish virgins, have 
been sleeping as regards the coming of the Bride- 
groom — sleeping for at least 1600 years. " But 
at midnight there is a cry." It seems as if the 
Lord, in despair of His Church, has himself 
aroused her by the Holy Spirit. The cry has of 
recent years gone forth in power over all the world, 
and there has been a general awakening of the 
Church to honest heart- desire for her Lord's re- 
turn, and a proper conception of it as a home 
gathering. The once prevalent idea that the 
Lord's coming meant death, was appropriate to a 
theology which had resolved His blessed person- 
ality into a misty abstraction. But now the 
Church looks for that same Jesus of whose warm 
personality the disciple whom Jesus loved could 
speak ; He who loved Martha, and her sister, and 
Lazarus ; and of whom Paul could say, He ' < loved 
me, and gave Himself up for me. " 

Many give the following passage (Matt. 24 : 14) 
as a reason why we should not expect the Lord 
immediately : ' ' This gospel of the kingdom shall 
be preached in the whole world for a testimony 
unto all the nations ; and then shall the end come." 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 27 

But, speaking generally, the gospel has certainly 
now been preached in all the world in the shape of 
a testimony to all the nations — with no resem- 
blance to exhaustiveness as regards these nations, 
for that is not contemplated in the passage, which 
in any case brings the Coming we look for very 
near, seeing that it must be before " the end." 
This prophecy is rather one of the most powerful 
arguments for the impossibility of further delay. 
After the Church is taken away, and the time of 
the great tribulation is entered upon, the testimony 
will be carried on till the end with all the energy 
of deep repentance and alarm, proclaiming a com- 
ing King. With such a completion of testimony 
to follow, there stands not to-day a single word of 
testimony between us and the coming of the Lord. 

If we can only say, and I think we can, that the 
Church is not now hindering her Lord's return, 
what reason as strong can we have for believing in 
His immediate appearing as just His own simple 
words : " Yea : I come quickly." 

When the forty years wandering of Israel was at 
an end, there was a sudden movement. The cry went 
forth through all the camp : < « Within three days 
you are to pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess 
the land." And after the Church's forty times 
forty years of wandering of heart, the midnight 
cry is now over all the camp of the saints through- 
out the world, and it is as if we heard repeated 
from the very lips of the Lord Jesus the word, 
" Quickly." 



28 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 



THE CHURCH DESIRES HER LORD'S RETURN. 

We may go further than saying that the Church 
is not now hindering : we may say that she has a 
spirit of desire after the Lord's appearing such as 
has not been since Pentecostal times. A remark- 
able change has come over the Church within the 
last few years, caused entirely by the Holy Spirit 
shedding light upon what was dark, revealing the 
beauty of the coming One, and so drawing out all 
hearts to Him. We are told (2 Peter 1 :19) that 
we do well to take heed to ' < the word of prophecy 
made more sure," "as unto a lamp shining in a 
dark [Greek, squalid] place, until the day dawn 
and the day-star arise in [our] hearts : " that is, 
till the time of our Morning Star, whom we shall 
rise to meet. Meantime, the Church is traveling 
through a place that is not only dark, because it is 
night, but squalid, foul with neglect ; and this 
lamp of prophecy is to throw light upon her path 
till the dawn — not clearly upon more of the path 
than just about where we stand : for God does not 
give clear light on any special point till it is 
needed. 

About the time that Jesus was born at Bethle- 
hem, there was, among His own people, the Jews, 
a general expectation of His coming, derived from 
prophecy, but a light that suffered aberration by 
passing through the dense medium of their proud, 
darkened, and unspiritual hearts. Thus they made 
the great mistake of supposing that the advent 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 29 

would be of an earthly king to restore the glories 
of Solomon's reign — a mountain of exaltation 
without any valley of humiliation. But the first 
stage of that coming was as follows (and let the 
spiritual behold therein a picture) — a Child to be 
taken to our hearts and have therein his throne ; a 
Babe born by the power of the Holy Spirit, as 
must be all who enter His Kingdom ; an outsider, 
as are all His subjects till He comes to reign — no 
room in the inn, persecuted by the world, an exile 
in Egypt, and for thirty years invisible and un- 
known to professing Judaism, a period of which 
nothing is known but that it "was spent with His 
own flesh and blood, in which we may see some 
figure of the Church, whose "life is hid with 
Christ in God. " Jewish profession understood not, 
but the Church of that day did — such as Simeon, 
who took the Babe to his heart, and Anna, and the 
shepherds, and the Gentile wise men, and Mary, 
who kept the words of God in her heart. To-day the 
Church understands that a more gladsome sight is 
dawning than the first Christmas saw. To the 
wise there may be as the light of a guiding star, 
and to the simple there may be as the glory of the 
Lord shining round about them ; but to Gentile 
and Jew, and high and low, it is the revealing 
light of the Holy Spirit, showing a coming of a 
thoroughly home character, a gathering together 
of all who love the appearing of our Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thereafter is the Church 
invisible for a time, to re- appear with her Lord 



30 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

in glory, in His public advent as King of the 
Jews. 

I know no part of the world where the Bible has 
been better studied than in Scotland, and yet there 
are still living in that country, pastors who, in their 
early ministry, stood isolated on this question from 
all their fellows, and were looked upon by Chris- 
tians generally as fanatics and visionaries simply 
because they believed that the Lord's coming for 
the Church did not mean death, nor an event for 
which she had to wait till the end of a thousand 
years. Scotland sees now that these few men had 
but reached sooner than others the summit of 
Mount Pisgah, and therefore saw all the earlier, 
through the revelation of the Spirit, what God has 
prepared for those who love Him. To-day the 
Church throughout the world is with them — al- 
most entirely as regards belief in the nearness of 
the Coming, and entirely as regards desire for Him 
who is the Coming One. To any Christian who 
reads and observes, there is no need of facts in 
proof that everywhere, even in Jerusalem, the 
Church is being wakened up to watching and 
waiting, and is smiling with happiness at the 
revival of the Blessed Hope. 

The question is often put — Will not some only 
of the Church be taken, and some left ? It is 
want of discernment between mere profession and 
reality that prompts such a question. As to the 
Church, every member will be taken when the 
Lord comes, and just because they are of the 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 31 

Church ; and none but members of the Church will 
be taken. How is it possible that any part should 
be left behind of the mystic Body of the Lord, 
every member of which is knit together in love 
with the great Head and with every other member ? 
For, in connection with the coming of the Lord for 
the Church there are but two classes in these days 
of grace — Lovers, having the love of God shed 
abroad in their hearts through the Holy Spirit ; 
and Non-lovers, of whom it is written, < < If any 
man loves not the Lord, let him be anathema. 
Our Lord comes." 1 Cor. 16:22, K V. It is 
not a question of degree of love, but of the exist- 
ence of love. Shame be on us if so transcendent 
a joy as seeing the Lord and being forever with 
Him, has not become the chief thought and desire 
of our lives, by which everything therein is regu- 
lated, and by which all outward affairs are esti- 
mated. 

But if, to-day, in some measure of love, we can 
say, "Amen: come, Lord Jesus," in response to 
His promise, "Yea: I come quickly," then does 
there seem to be fulfilled that attitude of heart 
that the Lord has linked to His promise. < ' Christ 
also, having been once offered to bear the sins of 
many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, 
to them that wait for Him, unto salvation. " See- 
ing that the Church for perhaps 1700 years had 
ceased to wait for the Lord, this promise could not 
be fulfilled. But now that all over the world we 
are waiting and watching for Him, with both our 



32 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 

hearts and our eyes, faith claims the fulfillment. 
For the Church holds in her hands the key of the 
Coming. < < If any man hear My voice and open 
the door, I will come in to him." And if the 
Church is now opening to the Lord, He will come. 

THE GETTING READY OF THE CHURCH. 

When a party of emigrants is leaving for a 
foreign land, there is much personal preparation, 
much cultivating of friendship among those who are 
to be future companions, and a general settling up 
of affairs — a severing of ties that will have hence- 
forth no place, and parting messages to those left 
behind. Since every member of the Church must 
be ready when the Lord comes — not in any per- 
fection of readiness, but certainly in the spirit and 
heart-attitude of readiness — then all these things 
are even now being worked by the Holy Spirit in 
every member. 

As regards the personal aspect of the getting 
ready, it is beyond question that the matter of per- 
sonal holiness has within the last few years com- 
manded the practical attention of the whole Church. 
To live as realizing the absolute proprietorship of 
the Redeemer in our spirits, souls, and bodies, 
which lies at the foundation of all questions of 
holiness and consecration, is now seen to be no 
" higher life," which some may practice and the 
many may neglect, but that every-day life which 
should have followed the conversion of every one 
of us, as a matter of course, had we received our 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 33 

Lord and Saviour with the simplicity of little chil- 
dren, There is to-day a growing apprehension of 
what is in keeping with the spirits, souls, and bod- 
ies of those who are not their own but have been 
bought with a price, and who, having been born 
anew are partakers of the Divine nature ; and there 
is some growing realization of conformity to the 
Divine ideal. It is also realized that religion is no 
matter of creeds and opinions received from secta- 
rian connections, but is a matter of the heart ; and 
that the heart that is most prepared for the coming 
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the heart that loves 
Him most. 

In the next place, I think that we of the Family 
are all becoming better acquainted, and are having 
more and more of that pleasant assurance spoken of 
by the disciple whom Jesus loved : i l We know that 
we have passed out of death into life, because we love 
the brethren." There is a gathering going on be- 
fore our eyes of God's spiritual Israel — a gather- 
ing together in heart and soul such as has not been 
since those happy first days when the Church was 
< < of one heart and soul. " The Power that is draw- 
ing us together is that by which we shall be caught 
up together ; and it seems to me that the Holy 
Spirit is working thus, because the Coming is at 
hand, and He would not have us ashamed then be- 
fore the Lord and before one another. We now 
meet each other in ever-multiplying conferences 
and meetings of many kinds, but why so little at 
that meeting which is above all, that family circle, 
3 



34 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

that gathering place of the Church — the Lord's 
Table? How has Sectarianism (that is, combined 
Devil, world, and flesh) dimmed the glory of beauty 
of that sacred feast ! What a rallying point it 
might have been for the faithful, what a joy for 
the lonely, what a declaration of present and eter- 
nal union. It is a " might have been" that we 
will be sorry about up yonder, when we look back 
on sectarian walls that we allowed to keep us from 
sitting together at that memorial of dying love 
that was only until He came. The Passover gathered 
the Jews together as one. The Lord's Supper scat- 
ters Christendom. Should it scatter the Church? 
"What, then, have we to do with these many secta- 
rian tables : as if we met round a table, and not 
round the Lord of the table? We are improving 
in this matter, but are still tied by tradition and 
hampered by sectarianism, and have yet to come 
out into the full liberty of the truth with which 
Christ has made us free. We all profess in theory 
that we are free from the Devil's yokes of bondage; 
that the Lord's Table is one, even as He is one; 
that it is our gathering place, and ours only ; and 
that all contrary ideas and practices are not of God 
but of the Devil — and yet ! ! ! With all my heart 
do I plead for a more abundant practicing of what 
we believe. If the question was put to you, reader, 
Where would you have the Lord find you when he 
comes? could you give a better answer than, Just 
at his table, with my brothers and sisters: for it 
would be the place of obedience, remembrance, 
love, unity, and testimony — all in one. 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 35 

As regards the other preparations for departure, 
it may truthfully be said that never since Pente- 
cost has the Church so realized her pilgrim charac- 
ter, and that she is not of the world any more than 
her Lord was of the world, nor in the place of ac- 
ceptance with the world any more than He was. 
We recognize that God is gathering into one the 
hearts of His spiritual Israel, dispersed among the 
sects, just as He is beginning to gather into one 
the dispersed of Israel among the nations; and as 
with Israel of old and Israel of to-day, God is 
stirring up the nest of the Church, and teaching 
His birds to fly. Looking round on the individual 
members of the Church (and it will be a wonder if 
we need to leave ourselves out), we are struck with 
the evident discipline concerning earthly things 
through which the Lord is making His children to 
pass. Just as with Israel immediately before the 
Exodus, the world is making it very hard for a 
Christian to do his daily work. He has to do it 
without the world's "straw," and naturally the 
world favors its own. We see already the begin- 
nings of what will reach full development after the 
Church is removed : "No man should be able to 
buy or to sell, save him who has the mark, even 
the name of the beast or the number of his name." 
Rev. 13: 17. 

As a rule, the members of the Church are com- 
paratively poor. The rich are few, and certainly 
the retaining of much wealth is not the mark of a 
Christian. Yet ere our departure out of Egypt, 
the Lord seems to be repeating history in giving 



36 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

His people " favor," so that we are " spoiling the 
Egyptians " of their best. The Lord is indeed, 
through his people, gathering jewels from the 
world, even the choicest and the best out of the 
Devil's kingdom. There has not been a time, since 
those first days when she waited and watched in 
power, that the Church has been so eager for these 
jewels as to-day: an intuition from the Holy Spirit 
telling her that it is " in haste " that she must pro- 
vide for her eternal adornment. And the eager- 
ness is not less notable than the readiness with 
which the desire is supplied. As on the night of 
Israel's Exodus, the jewels may be had for the 
asking. 

The parting messages are being given. < ' The 
Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And he that 
bears, let him say, Come. And he that is thirsty, 
let him come : he that will, let him take the water 
of life freely." The last proclamation of the glad 
tidings of free grace is to-day being made by 
the Church. It is not evangelists, or pastors, or 
teachers, who proclaim, but the Church at large — 
the Bride. It is taken for granted that there is 
not a member of the Church but has enough of the 
love of God, in him or her, to desire not to de- 
part to eternal happiness without many parting 
messages to those who are choosing eternal misery. 
Blessed are they whose messages bear much fruit 
in precious souls. These are easily carried when 
the Exodus flight commences. Such jewels can be 
taken next the heart. The Pentecostal Church be- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 37 

lieved in them : but houses and lands they sold, 
knowing that they could not carry such. Chris- 
tians are not in any case notable as owners of real 
estate, and to-day the expectation of the Lord's 
coming is having the practical effect of tending to 
make their title deeds exclusively Heavenly. 

My heart warms at remembrance of the itinerant 
preacher who used to go about in deep poverty, 
but with a happy heart, overflowing with songs of 
redeeming love, among which a special favorite 
was, "No foot of land do I possess." Some one, 
thinking to do him a kindness, presented him with 
a title deed to 160 acres of land. But it was not 
long till the preacher came back to the donor, say- 
ing, < < Take back your deed : it has stopped my 
favorite song. And I would rather sing that 
hymn than own America." When, after some ex- 
postulation, the gift was taken back, the happy 
preacher went on his way, singing his old song : 

" No foot of land do I possess, 
No cottage in this wilderness : 

A poor way-faring man , 
I lodge awhile in tents below ; 
Or gladly wander to and fro, 
Till I my Canaan gain. 

"Nothing on earth I call my own; 
A stranger, to the world unknown, 

I all their goods despise : 
I trample on their whole delight, 
And seek a country out of sight, 

A city in the skies. 



38 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

" There is my house and portion fair; 
My treasure and my heart are there, 

And my abiding home ; 
For me my elder brethren stay, 
And angels beckon me away, 

And Jesus bids me ' Come ! ' 

" I come — thy servant, Lord, replies — 
I come to meet Thee in the skies, 

And claim my Heavenly rest ! 
Now let the pilgrim's journey end; 
Now, O my Saviour, Brother, Friend, 

Receive me to Thy breast! " 

In everything the Lord is making the division 
more clear between His people and the world, just 
as long ago He "put a division" between Israel 
and the Egyptians. Are ' ' the diseases of the 
Egyptians " upon God's people to-day ? Certainly 
not as a people. And what is said in Psalm 
105 :37 is true of the Church as regards spiritual 
treasure and spiritual strength, and, to a great 
extent, as regards physical strength also : ' ' He 
brought them forth with silver and gold : and there 
was not one feeble person among His tribes." If 
we find bodily feebleness in a member, it is in 
most cases the fruit of disobedience, and specially 
the disobedience of walking in outward or inward 
denial of the truth of the Body. Almost at every 
observance of the Lord's Supper, the latter half of 
the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians is read, but 
the reader never dares to direct attention to the 
occasion of Paul's writing these words, which was 
the impossibility of eating the Lord's Supper, ow- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 39 

ing to divisions. Nevertheless, the Church at 
Corinth was < * the Church of God which is at Cor- 
inth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, 
called to be saints, with all that call upon the 
name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, 
their Lord and ours;" and they had never gone 
our God-dishonoring length, of having separate 
Lord's tables. I quote one awful verse for sec- 
tarians, followed by a solemn warning that this sin 
of division (which is weakness before the enemy, 
before our brethren, and in our own souls), will be 
followed as a natural consequence by weakness of 
the body, and perhaps falling asleep — that is, the 
Lord's chastisement instead of the joy of waiting 
till He come. < i He that eats and drinks, eats and 
drinks judgment to himself, if he discern not the 
Body. For this cause many among you are weak 
and sickly, and not a few sleep." 

When all is said, the best readiness of the 
Church is love. It is as the beauty of a bride 
that needs no other adorning. Praise be to God 
if, amid the diseases of Egypt, the oneness of 
Love has been to us health and strength of soul 
and body ; and if, with Egyptian darkness all 
round us, the light of Love has been in our dwell- 
ings clear enough for the full recognition of every 
brother and sister who with us is listening for that 
Exodus trumpet, which shall gather us all together, 
to be forever with the Lord. 

Nor let us forget that it is all of Grace. Who 
makes us to differ ? and what have we that we did 



40 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

not receive ? The health and strength and light 
and beauty of Love, the listening ear and the 
watchful eye, the garment of praise and the fine 
linen of righteous acts, and the shining lamp of 
testimony : all are of Grace. It is Grace at the 
cross ; Grace when he gathers us ; Grace in Heav- 
enly homes through all eternity. 

" On such love, my soul, still ponder: 
Love so great, so rich, so free ! 
Say, while lost in holy wonder, 
Why, O Lord, such love to me ? 

Hallelujah ! 
Grace shall reign eternally ! »■ 

THE RETURN OF THE JEW. 

Let the Gentile take warning, when the Jew be- 
gins again to stir. For it is " notice to quit" to 
the house of Gentile profession, in other words, 
Christendom. And it is evident to all e} T es that 
there is to-day such a stirring up of the Jews, both 
from within and from without, as has not been seen 
since their dispersion ; and such a work of the Holy 
Spirit among them as has not been since Pentecost. 
Now, the Jew is God's time-piece, and He reckons 
earth's time from Jerusalem. But Jerusalem, as 
His place of earthly manifestation, is no more ; and 
the time-piece stopped at 3 o'clock on that after- 
noon when the earthly life of the faithful and true 
Witness was ended. What is it that we see to-day? 
Is it not God again winding up His time-piece, as 
about to resume open dealings with the world? 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 41 

When we see a movement commenced that is the 
beginning of the end, we may be sure that our 
time is very close at hand. For the " hardening " 
of the Jew, and the duration of this Dispensation, 
is only to be " until the fullness of the Gentiles be 
come in." " These glad tidings of the kingdom 
must first be published in the whole inhabited 
earth for a testimony to all the nations. And then 
shall the end come. . . . Jerusalem shall be trod- 
den down by the Gentiles, until the times of the 
Gentiles be fulfilled." 

Let it be noted that I speak of no outward signs 
in proof of the closeness of the Lord's coming, 
except in connection with the Jews; and I only 
mention these signs as one would argue, that if the 
travelers in the latter section of a train, run in 
two divisions, are warned by signal that they are 
nearing the terminus, those in the first section must 
be still nearer, especially as they are to get out by 
a private exit, just before the general station is 
reached. Outward signs are the accompaniment 
of a Dispensation of outward things. But this 
Dispensation is not of an outward " mountain " 
nor of a visible " Jerusalem " but is "in spirit and 
truth." (See John 4: 20-24.) It is not to the phys- 
ical world but to the spiritual, that we must look. 
The Church has no sign by which to know that her 
Lord is near, but the premonition of the indwelling 
Holy Spirit, and what is summed up in these words, 
written in the book of Daniel concerning these 
days, " They that be wise shall understand." 



42 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

The return of the Jews to their own land has 
certainly begun in a notable way, and their coming 
again into prominence should make even the 
thoughtless consider. A few years ago, and the 
name of the Jew was scarcely ever mentioned 
among the news of the day, unless incidentally as 
a term of reproach. Now the newspapers are full 
of items that tell how God's ancient people who, 
like the Church, have been scattered among all na- 
tions and yet not of them, being ever ' l a holy 
nation, a people for God's own possession," are 
to-day also like the Church in aw T akening from a 
long sleep. I know not wiiich is the greater mira- 
cle : the earthly people, preserved by God in faith- 
fulness through 1823 years of persecution, reproach, 
and scattering, since the destruction of their temple 
in the year 70; or the spiritual people, kept alive 
by God in grace through a like period of tribula- 
tion, and in spite of the added ills of their sad 
failures in hope, faith, and love. 

In 1841 there were not in the Holy Land over 
8000 Jews. In 1893 there are not less than 80,000. 
More than a half of the population are Jews, and 
at least two-thirds in Jerusalem, where there are 
30,000 Jews. Thus, for the first time since their 
dispersion, the Jews are again in a majority in 
their own land. 

It startled France recently to find that the ma- 
jority of her Prefects w T ere Jews. With less than 
500,000 Jews within her borders, the Prefects of 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 43 

62 out of her 84 departments were of God's an- 
cient people. 

And who can look over the eminent names in 
Statesmanship, Finance, Music, Painting, etc., 
without being so amazed at the prominence of the 
Jew, and predominance in actual genius, as to re- 
quire no persuasion to believe that ere long they 
will be the foremost nation of the world? Russia and 
other countries may persecute, but they do so only 
to their own destruction. For thus saith the Lord 
concerning his people, < < Behold, they may gather 
together, but not by Me: whosoever shall gather 
together against thee shall fall because of thee. 
. . . No weapon that is formed against thee 
shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise 
against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." 
Isa. 54: 15, 17. 

A recent cartoon represented the Czar of Russia 
as the modern Pharaoh driving the Jews out of his 
land through the Atlantic to New York, as their 
New Jerusalem. Even the world sees the parallel 
to the Exodus ; but let the persecutor remember 
the fate of Pharaoh's army after Israel had got to 
the other side of the sea. Russia is, as before 
stated, clearly set forth in prophecy as the chief 
persecutor of the Jews in these days, and her final 
destruction is foretold in Ezekiel. 

History repeats itself : that is, God repeats 
Himself. The same God who said to Moses, < < I 
have surely seen the affliction of My people which 



44 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason 
of their taskmasters ; for I know their sorrows ; 
and I am come down to deliver them : " that God 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is to-day listening 
to the cries of His ancient people, and will as cer- 
tainly reveal Himself as their Deliverer. 

Only those who are laboring among the Jews 
know what a wonderful work the Holy Spirit is ef- 
fecting — the general spirit of enquiry and the 
many undoubted cases of change of heart. Some 
of the converts in New York, where there has been a 
very notable work, state that the Lord Jesus has 
appeared to them in dreams. Is this counted a 
thing incredible by some ? Let them read Job 
33 : 15-18, and the five dreams in the first two chap- 
ters of the New Testament, and note that this is but 
another of the many signs of the closing of this 
Dispensation, according to the prophecy quoted by 
Peter (Acts 2 :17) which had a first-fruits of ful- 
fillment at Pentecost, and in these days has en- 
tered upon a fulfillment in all fullness. ' < And it 
shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I 
will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh : and 
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and 
your young men shall see visions, and your old men 
shall dream dreams." 

The Holy Land is now a special object of in- 
terest. Surveys, excavations, railways, planting, 
and building are going on. The world is wonder- 
ing at this resurrection from the dust of ages ; and 
the Church is considering. Foreseeing these days, 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 45 

a poet-prophet founds upon this awakening inter- 
est the argument that it is therefore time for God 
to work : 

" Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion : 
For it is time to have pity upon her, yea, the set time is come ; 
For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, 
And have pity upon her dust." 

If the servants of Jehovah are taking pleasure 
in the stones of Zion, and having pity upon her 
very dust, then surely the time is come for her 
Lord to have pity upon her. Yet what is the 
servants' work but the carrying out of the Mas- 
ter's thought ? Are we interested in Jerusalem ? 
Are we remembering ? What intense interest is 
His who forgets her never ! 

The prophecy just quoted from Psalm 102 is 
now being fulfilled before our eyes, and the con- 
tinuation of the prophecy will not see long delay 
of fulfillment. The last siege of the city comes, 
and her last day of sorrow, when the Lord appears 
and delivers His people from the assembled na- 
tions, and ushers in the millennium. To-day man 
rebuilds in unbelief : to-morrow God rebuilds. To- 
day the dust : to-morrow the glory. The prophecy 
continues : 

w So the nations shall fear the name of the Lord, 
And aU the kings of the earth thy glory : 
For the Lord hath built up Zion, 
He hath appeared in His glory ; 
He hath regarded the prayer of the destitute, 
And hath not despised their prayer. 



46 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

This shall be written for the generation to come : 

And a people which shall be created shall praise the Lord. 

For He hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary ; 

From Heaven did the Lord behold the earth ; 

To hear the sighing of the prisoner; 

To loose them that are appointed to death; 

That men may declare the name of the Lord in Zion, 

And His praise in Jerusalem ; 

When the people are gathered together, 

And the kingdoms, to serve the Lord." 

Again it is prophesied in Psalm 147: "The 
Lord doth build up Jerusalem; He gathereth to- 
gether the outcasts of Israel." And in connection 
with the gathering together, let us read what Amos 
prophesied, 2700 years ago: " I will sift the house 
of Israel among all the nations, like as corn is 
sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall 
upon the earth." 

Our Lord said, " Jerusalem shall be trodden 
down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gen- 
tiles be fulfilled. " And when we behold all that 
is now happening, and most of all when we see 
such a readiness to listen, and so many of Israel 
turning to Him whom they pierced, can we say 
that these times are not fulfilled? Israel is pray- 
ing, and God is listening. 

11 Remember thy congregation, which Thou hast purchased of 
old, 
Which Thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of Thine inherit- 
ance; 
And Mount Zion, wherein Thou hast dwelt." 
" Remember not against us the iniquities of our forefathers : 
Let thy tender mercies speedily meet us : 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 47 

For we are brought very low. 

Help us, God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name : 
And deliver us, and purge away our sins, for Thy name's 
sake." 

" Turn again, we beseech Thee, God of hosts: 
Look down from Heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, 
And the stock which Thy right hand hath planted, 
And the branch that Thou madest strong for Thyself." 

44 For the Lord will not cast off His people, 
Neither will he forsake His inheritance." 

How often do we join hands with God's ancient 
people, and plead for this vine, of whose richness 
we have partaken, and whose rejection was our 
receiving ? How often do we < < pray for the peace 
of Jerusalem " ? " Ye that are the Lord's remem- 
brancers, take ye no rest, and give Him no rest, 
till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a 
praise in the earth." 

I behold Zion in exile kneeling eastward towards 
her old home. It is written, ' ' Zion spreadeth forth 
her hands ; there is none to comfort her. " The an- 
cient glory of the King's daughter is gone. But 
to-day she holds in her hand before the Lord one 
of His own Forget-me-nots. And I hear Him who 
loved her of old, saying : < < Can a woman forget her 
sucking child, that she should not have compassion 
on the son of her womb ? Yea, these may forget, 
yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven 
thee upon the palms of my hands ; thy walls are 
continually before Me." "Thou shalt no more be 
termed Forsaken ; neither shall thy land any more 
be termed Desolate : but thou shalt be called Heph- 



48 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 

zi-bah, and thy land Beulah : for the Lord de- 
lighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. 
... As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, 
so shall thy God rejoice over thee." "As one 
whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort 
you ; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem." 

THE GATHERING FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF GOD'S 
"EASTERN QUESTION." 

There are three gatherings going on before our 
eyes — the spiritual gathering of the Church, the 
gathering of the Jews to their own land, and the 
gathering together of men and materials for 
the settlement of what I call God's "Eastern 
Question." The "Eastern Question" has always 
troubled the peace of Europe, and always will, till 
God's time be come for final settlement. It is the 
question of Him before whom the walls of Zion 
are continually, and upon the palms of whose 
wounded hands she herself is graven with a strange 
literalness — Have I forgotten ? Wherever war 
may begin in Europe, the real center of all its 
movements and the ultimate issue of all its opera- 
tions, will be God's Jerusalem. 

The world never saw such a gathering of the 
clouds of war, and the storm will be all the sorer 
that it has been so long in gathering ; just as the 
breaking of God's silence in the Day of the Lord 
will be all the more terrible that it ends the long- 
est silence that God has kept since the Creation. 
It has been the silence of Grace, and it was meet 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 49 

that His most glorious work should be crowned 
with His "long patience." The outcome of these 
approaching terrible wars is to be the resuming of 
God's direct dealings with mankind — no longer in 
grace, but in open judgment upon his enemies. 
The second psalm gives us a picture of that out- 
come : raging nations, kings combined against 
Jehovah and His Christ (nominally against the 
Jew, but it will be asked again, < ' Why persecutest 
thou Me f "), a King set upon God's holy hill of 
Zion, the Son whose inheritance is the nations, 
and His possession the uttermost parts of the 
earth. 

" Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; 
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 
Now therefore be wise, O ye kings : 
Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 
Serve the Lord with fear, 
And rejoice with trembling. 

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way, 
For His wrath will soon be kindled." 

We can scarcely realize from figures how im- 
mense are the hosts of men armed at this moment 
with the latest improvements for the wholesale 
murder of one another. The armies of Europe, in 
1893, have been carefully calculated at 4,776,000 
men on a " peace footing; " and on a war footing, 
22,026,000. The war navies number about 2500 
vessels, carrying about 415,000 men. 

Some argue that the very immensity of these 
forces is a guarantee of peace, because of actual 
4 



50 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

fear of letting them loose. Others argue that the 
possession of such powers is a constant temptation 
to use them. But we who are privileged to stand 
at God's side, and therefrom view all the affairs of 
this world, behold in these great masses of hu- 
manity and the kings and politicians who move 
them, a gathering of vultures overruled by Jehovah 
for the speedy devouring of what is corrupt and 
now tainting the atmosphere, so that in the end a 
kingdom of Purity and Peace may be established, 
and that prophecy be fulfilled : ' < The kingdom of 
the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, 
and of His Christ : and He shall reign for ever and 
ever." 

FULL RIPENESS. 

"Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
shall be increased." So is "the time of the end" 
pictured in the book of the prophet Daniel. Un- 
doubtedly, then, that time is upon us. Pre-emi- 
nently it is an age, the characteristic of whose 
outer life is running to and fro, and the character- 
istic of whose inner life is knowing, through con- 
stant reading and investigating. 

The infidel Voltaire, who went to his account in 
1778, wrote as follows : "Now look at the mighty 
mind of Newton, the great philosopher who dis- 
covered the law of gravitation. When he became 
an old man and reached the time of his dotage, he 
began to study the book called the Bible, and in 
order to give credit to its fabulous nonsense he 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 51 

would have us believe that the knowledge of man- 
kind will yet be so increased, that by and by we 
shall be able to travel 50 miles an hour ! Poor 
dotard!" And in 1819, there appeared the fol- 
lowing in the London < ' Quarterly Keview. " " We 
cannot but laugh at an idea so utterly impracti- 
cable as that of a road of iron, on which they say 
one may travel by steam ! Can anything be more 
absurd or laughable than the idea of a steam-pro- 
pelled wagon, moving twice as fast as our rapid 
mail coaches ? It would be much more possible to 
travel from Woolwich to the Arsenal by the aid of 
a Congreve rocket ! " The laugh is now very much 
on the other side. 

It was not till about 1840 that the -modern railway 
was fairly started, and the progress made since then 
has been immense. Probably the United States 
takes the lead for luxury of traveling and perfec- 
tion of locomotives — the new railway from Jaffa 
to Jerusalem having locomotives supplied by Phila- 
delphia. The whole earth seems now being cov- 
ered with rails, as the sea is with racing steamers, 
and 72 miles an hour will not long satisfy mankind. 
Electricity is taking the place of steam, and it is 
only the fool that will set any other limit to human 
progress than what may be imposed by God through 
some special providence. 

The electric light is a symbol of that searching 
light of investigation which man is bringing to bear 
upon everything under the sun and beyond it. The 
navigation of the heavens, the inspecting of the 



52 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

depths of the sea, the discovering of germs of dis- 
ease, the unveiling of stars whose distances no hu- 
man mind can grasp, the investigation of psychical 
phenomena, all the mysteries of the natural and the 
spiritual — everything must be known. 

I am not surprised that many scientists argue that 
some great crisis is at hand, simply because they 
think man is beginning to know too much, and is 
on the verge of mysteries which he will not be al- 
lowed to investigate. The tower is getting to be 
too high, and we may expect the experience of 
Babel to be repeated. < ' This is what they begin to 
do : and now nothing will be withholden from them, 
which they purpose to do. " And so the Lord scat- 
tered the builders. 

In the religious world there is the same spirit of 
investigation, and a wonderful increase of knowl- 
edge. The Holy Spirit has been shedding a flood 
of light upon all that concerns the believer. The 
mere critics have been unwittingly doing God serv- 
ice in their exegeses ; and out of the dust of 
Egypt, Moab, Babylon, and the Holy Land, has 
come a resurrection of witnesses to the truth of 
the sacred record. The Bible is to-day in our 
hands revised and corrected as book never was 
before : ancient manuscripts of its contents having 
been subjected to even the scrutiny of the micro- 
scope. 

It is not light upon one doctrine only, such as 
justification by faith, that the Church possesses 
to-day, but upon every truth, and to a degree un- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 53 

known in all her past history. To mention a few 
things : we better understand the Father as re- 
vealed in Jesus Christ ; God's present dealings 
with the world in grace ; the personality and work- 
ings of the Holy Spirit ; the unity of the Church ; 
her connection with Him who is her Head ; her 
attitude towards the world ; and this great joy of 
watching and waiting for the Coming One. Again 
the darkness is past, and the true light now shines 
in the Holy Spirit. To my vision, it is the clear 
shining of the trimmed lamps of the wise virgins 
— burning their brightest because the Bridegroom 
is at hand. 

The night is not forever. To neither the Church 
nor the world is there such a thing as continuity of 
present condition. When the fruit of the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil comes to its full 
ripeness, there is a gathering of the good, and a 
casting away of the bad. But this is an unwel- 
come truth to the world. It was well remarked 
the other day by a newspaper, in connection with 
the reported dismissal of a professor for teaching 
that the Lord's coming would be before the close of 
this century — that if he had only been wise 
enough to say that there was no cause for alarm 
for at least several hundred years, everybody would 
have been satisfied. There is a passage (2 Peter 
3:3-7) which is a true prophecy of these days, 
when men would like to think that the world is go- 
ing to continue as it is for countless years, with- 
out this (to them) terror of the Lord's coming. 



54 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

1 l Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers 
shall come with mockery, walking after their own 
lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His 
coming ? for, from the day that the fathers fell 
asleep, all things continue as they were from the 
beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully 
forget, that there were heavens from of old, and 
an earth compacted out of water and amidst 
water, by the word of God ; by which means the 
world that then was, being overflowed with water, 
perished : but the heavens that now are, and the 
earth, by the same word have been stored up for 
fire, being reserved against the day of judgment 
and destruction of ungodly men." 

Continuity has no countenance from the New 
Testament, and has as little from Science. It is a 
theory that can only be held by fools, or by such 
wilfully ignorant people as do not wish to be in- 
formed when the house is on fire beneath them, and 
the tongues of flame are creeping up like serpents 
to the very bed whereon they lie sleeping. But the 
world will take its opiates, and cry, " All 'swell," 
up to the very jaws of destruction. 

I have no doubt but the scientists and the gen- 
eral sneering public of Noah's day, held the theory 
of continuity, and told him so. For nigh 1700 
years the world had been going on as usual, and for 
perhaps a century Noah had been forewarning it of 
a judgment that had never come. He had obeyed 
God, amid doubtless much ridicule, by preparing a 
refuge from what was unseen, and far less compre- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 55 

hensible than such a coming deluge of fire as is 
stored beneath our very feet. We do not know 
that there was a sign in the sky or on the earth, or 
that the voice was heard by the unbelieving world, 
when God said, "Come," to Noah, and shut the 
door of safety upon him and his little company, 
even as our Lord will say, "Come," to us, and 
take us up into the shelter of his loving arms. So, 
when the Flood came, it took the world unawares. 
* i As were the days of Noah, even so shall be the 
days of the coming of the Son of man. For as in 
those days which were before the Flood they were 
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in mar- 
riage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 
and they knew not till the Flood came, and de- 
stroyed them all : so shall be the coming of the Son 
of man." These are the words of the faithful and 
true Witness. 

THE CORRUPTION OF CHRISTENDOM. 

" Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened 
to ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out 
to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were 
foolish, and five were wise. For the foolish, when 
they took their lamps, took no oil with them : but 
the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 
Now, while the bridegroom delayed, they all be- 
came drowsy and slept. But at midnight there is 
a cry, Behold, the bridegroom ! Come ye forth to 
meet him. Then all those virgins arose and 
trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the 



56 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are 
going out. But the wise answered, saying, Lest 
there will not be enough for us and you, go you 
rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 
And while they went away to buy, the bridegroom 
came. And they who were ready went in with 
him to the marriage feast ; and the door was shut. 
Afterwards came also the other virgins, saying, 
Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and 
said, Verily, I say to you, I know you not. 
Watch therefore, for you know not the day nor the 
hour." 

Here is a picture of the Church and of mere pro- 
fession, from Pentecost till to-day — a general fall- 
ing asleep, and now, at this midnight hour, a cry 
and an awakening. Now again is there recognition 
of the truth that the mission of the Church is to 
be a light in darkness, waiting for her coming 
Lord. There is no contrast between these virgins 
as regards profession : all are professedly virgins. 
Nor is it a question of marriage garments. Nor 
did they differ in holding it to be true that the 
bridegroom was coming, though they had fallen 
asleep over it. But the solemn teaching of the 
parable is : Acceptance, because wise in clear-shin- 
ing testimony through the illuminating power of 
the Holy Spirit ; Rejection, because foolish — hav- 
ing no testimony, because void of the Holy Spirit, 
through whom alone testimony can be given. For 
the oil was the anointing and filling of the Holy 
Spirit — the witness to-day in the heart of the 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 57 

Church to a Heavenly relationship ; the link of 
love between her and the coming Bridegroom. 

But the foolish virgins, awakened to some inter- 
est by the reported nearness of the Bridegroom, 
found themselves with but the empty lamps of 
profession. The day was when the Lord Jesus 
Christ stood outside the door where they wor- 
shiped (making some artificial show of shining), 
and knocked through the Holy Spirit, long and pa- 
tiently. For their church door was that of Lao- 
dicea, the last of the seven stages of profession. 
To-day it is both the true Church and the unpro- 
f essing world that with common consent recognize 
in Laodicea the unmistakable likeness of modern 
Christianity. The name is familiar in our mouths 
as a household word. It is that ecclesiastical sys- 
tem which keeps the world within, and the Lord 
and the Spirit outside; wherein mere profession 
finds its ideal — the heart of Vanity Fair covered 
with the cloak of religion. And the Church be- 
holds here the climax of Grace — Jesus again re- 
jected by the " religious world" and knocking 
outside His own door, as with Jerusalem, "how 
often; " and the Holy Spirit, the power that should 
have been inside, grieved, and giving His last call 
to repentance. When the glory of the Lord de- 
parted from His temple, it went eastward to the 
Mount of Olives, to the place of the ascension and 
the coming again, and so shall return, according 
to the vision in Ezekiel. And in the same manner 
the Holy Spirit, having left the house of profession, 



58 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

has gone with the Church to that spiritual place of 
waiting and ascension that looks eastward towards 
the rising of the Morning Star. 

It is evident that the Church has nothing to do 
with mere profession. What ! Is the Lord re- 
jected and His Church received ? Is He an out- 
sider, by His own showing, and she within ? Nay, 
if you want to find the Church, you must always 
first find where her Lord is. If the five wise vir- 
gins slept, they slept by themselves : for they appear 
as a distinct body, and the Spirit of their Lord was 
with them. They saw the line clearly drawn be- 
tween profession and reality. They knew that 
those five were foolish, and that they themselves 
were wise through grace. And if the Holy Spirit 
be within us, we also will have no difficulty in rec- 
ognizing who are our brothers and sisters, and who 
are false. We will not be deceived by talk or 
action, for a spiritual discernment will tell us 
whether or not these proceed from love to our 
Lord. With our Lord's footsteps almost in our 
ears, it is high time we knew who love Him and 
who love Him not — and that for the sake of the 
unloving ones as well as for our own sakes. 

It is written (Rom. 10:9, 10), "If thou shalt 
confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt 
believe in thy heart that God raised him from the 
dead, thou shalt be saved : for with the heart man 
believes unto righteousness ; and with the mouth 
confession is made unto salvation." This is not 
confessing Jesus as Saviour. "Jesus" means 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 59 

Saviour. But it is confessing the Saviour as Mas- 
ter. That heart never truly turned to the Lord 
that did not realize that Love was Master. Even 
in poor earthly love (poor only by comparison, 
for all true love is Divine), we know how to 
test the genuine. If I truly love, I am the serv- 
ant of the loved one : the child shall lead me into 
captivity with its tiny hand, and the eyes of the 
woman shall draw me to her side from the ends of 
the earth. And when the Holy Spirit opens our 
eyes to behold the crucified One as our Saviour, it 
is Faith looking at Love, and being in the act 
transformed into the likeness of Love and into the 
obedience of Love. Thus, when the light of Love 
fell upon Saul, on his way to Damascus, he falls 
on the ground, a persecutor changed into a servant. 
" And I said, What shall I do, Lord ? " 

What then is this modern believing with the 
head ? James shows us, in his epistle, how the 
devils also believe after that fashion, and being 
more sober-minded than the frothy, jesting Chris- 
tians of to-day, they " tremble ; " but they remain 
devils still. To preach salvation by a faith of this 
kind is simply to people Hell. It makes no radical 
change in the life. As a consequence, our Laodi- 
cean churches do not hold that full surrender is the 
necessary consequence of faith. "Lord" does 
not mean Master with them. To speak of what 
should be the ordinary life of every Christian as a 
"higher life," expected only of an enthusiastic 
few, shows to what a depth of degradation Laodicea 



60 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 

has fallen. The Church at least holds that full 
surrender is the normal position of every one who 
professes to have been redeemed. Alas, how im- 
perfect is our practice ! All we can claim is some 
measure of realization, and a heart-desire for abso- 
lute conformity of life to doctrine. I am sure that 
the following hymn will awaken responsive echoes 
in the heart of every one of the Family who reads. 

" O the bitter shame and sorrow ! 

That a time could ever be, 

When I let the Saviour's pity 

Plead in vain, and proudly answered, 
* All of self, and none of thee.' 

" Yet He found me; I beheld Him 
Bleeding on th' accursed tree ; 
Heard Him pray, 4 Forgive them, Father ! ' 
And my wistful heart said, faintly, 
1 Some of self, and some of thee.' 

" Day by day His tender mercy, 

Healing, helping, full, and free, 
Sweet and strong, and O, so patient, 
Brought me lower, while I whispered, 
1 Less of self, and more of thee.' 

" i Higher than the highest heaven, 
Deeper than the deepest sea, 
Lord, Thy love at last has conquered ; 
Grant me now my spirit's longing — 
None of self, and all of Thee.' " 

If the Lord Jesus should thus be from the heart 
acknowledged as Master by every Christian, so He 
ought to be by Christendom. And that was un- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 61 

doubtedly the root idea of Christian governments. 
Christendom is denned in Webster's International 
Dictionary as, < ' That portion of the world in which 
Christianity prevails, or which is governed under 
Christian institutions, in distinction from heathen 
or Mohammedan lands. " And it will be conceded 
that the most favorable representations of Christen- 
dom are the United States, which impresses on its 
coins, "In God we trust;" and Great Britain, 
whose coins bear an inscription, of which the ren- 
dering is, Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of 
Britain, Defender of the Faith. 

"In God we trust : " I suppose a greater lie was 
never imprinted on a nation's coinage. For the 
United States trusts in almost everything but God ; 
and principally in that emblem of Mammon which 
is so worshiped as to have popularly bestowed 
upon it one of the attributes of God — the Almighty 
Dollar. No nation can trust God unless it knows 
Him. That man is popularly accounted a fool in 
this wide-awake country, who will trust another 
with ten cents unless he knows him. And that the 
nation trusts an unknown God with the manage- 
ment of its affairs, is as absurd as it is morally im- 
possible. That the nation does not know God, and 
therefore does not trust Him, is not hard of proof. 
For if the nation knew God it would love Him. 
That would be as inevitable as what Christ said to 
the nation of the Jews : « < You say that He is your 
God ; and you have not known Him. ... If God 
was your Father, you would love Me." Now, it is 



62 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

evident that the nation does not love God. For if 
it loved God, it would not, for one thing, give its 
cents to Him, and its dollars to the Devil. Let us 
look at a few facts in proof. 

The United States gives every year (the first two 
items have to be ' < collected ; ' ' the latter two are 
freely wasted) — 

For Home and Foreign Missions $ 5,500,000 

" Salaries of Pastors, etc 12,000,000 

11 Tobacco 600,000,000 

" Intoxicating Liquors 1,200,000,000 

This represents per head of our population : 

For Home and Foreign Missions $0 08 t 8 q 

(Foreign Missions alone about 6 cents.) 

" Salaries, etc 19 

" Tobacco 9 58 

" Liquors 19 17 

Or the above amounts would enable this nation 
to place on every letter of the Bible, of the money 
that is inscribed with her trust in God: 

$1.54 to spread the glad tidings of God's love at 
home and abroad. 

$3.36 to pay pastors, etc. 

$504.70 for the waste, dirt, and destruction of 
two only of her vices. 

Great Britain, whose Queen represents it "by 
the grace of God," as "Defender of the Faith," 
gives, to tell the heathen abroad of God's free 
offer of the. water of life, $5,000,000; and for 
self-indulgence in the Devil's water of death 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 63 

$706,250,000. This represents per head of her 
population : 

For the God professedly worshiped $ 13 

For one of the gods actually worshiped 18 75 

And this god Bacchus cannot be worshiped with- 
out human sacrifices. 125,000 of the British peo- 
ple go down every year to a drunkard's grave and 
a drunkard's Hell, and this country swells the aw- 
ful torrent with 150,000 victims. But what shall 
we say of the Christianity that can make lawful 
by license this constant snare and temptation to 
all classes and conditions ; this admitted cause 
of nine out of every ten crimes; this fountain of 
countless miseries ; this nursery of lawlessness, 
prostitution, and political corruption ; this civil 
war that means increasing and hopeless slavery, 
and a slaughter so gigantic that it would appall us 
— only we are so used to it ! The very devils of 
Hell might blush at the blasphemy of countries 
calling themselves Christian licensing and drawing 
their principal revenues from such an accursed 
traffic. The Christ who came, not to destroy 
men's lives but to save them, has neither part nor 
lot in such a spurious Christianity. < < Whosoever 
shall cause one of these little ones who believe on 
Me to stumble, it were better for him if a great 
millstone were hung about his neck, and he were 
sunk in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world 
because of occasions of stumbling ! For it is im- 
possible but that the occasions should come ; but 



64 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 

woe to that man through whom the occasion 
comes!" And woe to that nation! " The Son 
of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall 
gather out of His kingdom all things that cause 
stumbling, and those who work lawlessness, and 
shall cast them into the furnace of fire : there 
shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." 

It is quite evident from the foregoing figures, in 
what relative esteem and affection the two foremost 
Christian nations of the world hold God and the 
Devil. The United States "trusts " God with $5,- 
500,000 for spreading salvation ; and the Devil 
gets $1,800,000,000 for spreading filth and damna- 
tion, in two articles alone. To call such a nation 
"Christian" is too absurd. It is as out of place 
as writing "Holiness to the Lord" on a cask of 
whisky, or a box of cigars, or on a novel of fash- 
ionable life, or on the immodest undress of the ball 
rooms of Christendom. But for that part of it, 
"Holiness to the Lord" would be as strangely out 
of place at the fairs and socials of the churches. 

You may say that I should add, in making the 
above contrast, the $12,000,000 spent on pastor's 
salaries, and also the large sums expended from 
time to time in erecting costly "churches." But 
I have said nothing, on the other hand, about the 
costly temples where Bacchus is worshiped, which 
far surpass all churches in numerousness, and in 
the multitude and devotion of their worshipers — 
the services going on in many of these temples day 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 65 

and night for ever ; nor do I make any mention of 
the salaries of the officiating priests and their 
assistants. 

I may here remark, that while many true mem- 
bers of the Church have helped to build costly 
edifices for worship, out of a sincere belief that 
they were promoting God's glory — the idea was a 
mistaken one, and was based upon a misconception 
of the spirit of this Dispensation. For the differ- 
ence between the Church and the Jew in this mat- 
ter of worship, is as radical as between Grace and 
Law. It was an outward ceremonial worship in 
the one case : it is a spiritual unconventional wor- 
ship in the other. And since the destruction of 
the Temple at Jerusalem, there is no Divinely- 
sanctioned place of worship, except that one which 
our Lord has forever hallowed with His presence, 
and which has the consecration of the Holy Spirit, 
abiding in each blood-washed temple : < ' Where 
two or three are gathered together in My name, 
there I am in the midst of them." For this Dis- 
pensation is that which our Lord proclaimed at 
Jacob's well to the outsider: "The hour comes, 
and now is, when the true worshipers shall wor- 
ship the Father in spirit and truth : for such does 
the Father seek to be His worshipers. God is a 
Spirit : and they who worship Him must worship 
in spirit and truth." Therefore the place of wor- 
ship is nothing, but the spirit of the worshipers 
is everything. 
5 



66 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

" Jesus, where 'er Thy people meet, 
There they behold Thy mercy-seat; 
Where'er they seek Thee, Thou art found, 
And every place is hallowed ground. 

" For Thou, within no walls confined, 
Inhabitest the humble mind : 
Such ever bring Thee where they come ; 
And going, take Thee to their home." 

Why, then, did one of the largest congregations 
in these States spend last year nearly $250,000 on 
a church, that is, on stone and lime ; and for the 
heathen, that is, for souls that might become spir- 
itual temples to the glory of God, $80. Eighty 
dollars ! ! ! I wonder what the devils think of that 
congregation. We can see the sad looks of the 
angels. We can hear Him sigh who came to seek 
and to save that which was lost. 

And as regards the $12,000,000 for salaries of 
pastors, if it be the message of salvation that these 
are preaching, Lord's day after Lord's day to the 
same people without result, it is the mind of Christ 
that those sitting in darkness and the shadow of 
death, should at least have a chance. Wherefore, 
preachers, move on ! Be not hindered from obedi- 
ence to the command to go into all the world and 
preach the glad tidings to the whole creation, by 
love of worldly ease or of gold, in this adding to 
your salaries by commissions, and fees for marrying, 
burying, and baptizing. O noble Paul, what would 
you say to all this — you who could call the Church 
to witness, when you were passing on, after three 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 67 

years of admonishing "every one, night and day 
with tears," that you had not followed preaching 
as a trade, but from love of souls. ' ' I coveted no 
man's silver, or gold, or apparel. You yourselves 
know that these hands ministered unto my neces- 
sities, and to them that were with me. In all 
things I gave you an example, how that so laboring 
you ought to help the weak, and to remember the 
words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 

If you modern preachers will not take an ex- 
ample from your Lord and Master, take one from 
Paul. But know this, that in disobedience you 
are working ruin to your own souls, and damna- 
tion to the souls of those over whom you have as- 
sumed charge. For this gospel is either a savor 
"from life unto life," or "from death unto 
death. " These people that sit in these pews, profess- 
ing "Lord, Lord, " every Lord's day, are hearing 
this same repeated gospel from you to their ever-in- 
creasing hardening of heart, and to the making 
more sure of their final sentence from the Lord, 
" I know you not." " The land which hath drunk 
the rain that cometh oft upon it ... if it bears 
thorns and thistles, is rejected and nigh unto a 
curse; whose end is to be burned." 

But perhaps you preachers are teaching believers 
Lord's day after Lord's day. Then this is exactly 
the kind of them that Paul prophesied would be 
"in the last days:" "ever learning, and never 
able to come to the knowledge of the truth ; " 



68 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

1 ' holding a form of godliness, but having denied 
the power thereof." Otherwise there would be 
prompt obedience, and every congregation would 
be a missionary society. From the world's point 
of view, modern Christianity does not consider the 
message of salvation worth the paper it is printed on. 

If it be really teaching that keeps you preachers 
so constantly employed at home, it can have no 
meaning unless it be the teaching of believers, that 
is, those who have passed out of death into life ; 
for you cannot possibly teach the dead. But what 
then does your teaching amount to, when, repeated 
week after week, and year after year, to those who 
profess to be new creatures in Christ, risen to 
resurrection life in Him — what does all this ser- 
monizing amount to, with its "heads" and "ap- 
plications," if it does not instill the very first 
principle of obedience ? Alas, brother preachers, 
if these congregations of yours were really born 
again, they would not need so much persuading. 
Move on, brothers, move on ; and leave these 
masses of pew-sitting Christianity to the Lord's 
dealings. 

After about 1900 years since the command to 
" Go" was given : 

Heathendom has on an average 1 missionary to every 166,000 
India " " " " " 275,000 

Persia " " " " " 300,000 

Thibet " " " " " 2,000,000 

Anam has only Eoman Cath. missionaries to its pop. 5,000,000 
Afghanistan has no missionary " " 6,000,000 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 69 

Taking the most favorable view of the situation, 
there is in all heathendom, reckoning "regular" 
missionaries and " irregular " as well, women and 
native workers, an average of 1 worker to every 
31,000 ; while at home, reckoning preachers "or- 
dained" by man and ordained only by God, with 
Sunday-school teachers included, there is at the 
very least 1 worker to every 48 of our population. 

Nero, fiddling over burning Rome, has become a 
by-word for cold-bloodedness. But what shall we 
say of this nineteenth century Christianity, orthodox 
though it may be in holding fast salvation by faith 
and not by works, and damnation in eternal fires 
for all who believe not — which allows millions 
upon millions to perish, whose birthright, of which 
Christendom has defrauded them, was a spiritual 
"liberty, fraternity, and equality." I am not for- 
getting the 6 cents per head from this land of free- 
dom, nor the 13 cents from the other land of 
freedom ; and if any one thinks either of these 
sums to be the value of a substitute, so that he 
may escape from service, there will be judgment 
given as to that, when the Lord of the servants 
comes and makes a reckoning with them. 

If Christ taught anything, it- was self-denial and 
cross-bearing. The very essence of His teaching 
is to be nothing and to endure all things, to the 
end that His kingdom may be advanced in our- 
selves and others. < i If any one would come after 
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross 
daily, and follow Me. For whoever would save 



70 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

his life shall lose it; but whoever shall lose his life 
for My sake and for the glad tidings, he shall save 
it." " And he who does not take his cross, and 
follow after Me, is not worthy of Me. " "If any man 
comes to Me, and hates not his own father, and 
mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and 
sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can not be My 
disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross, 
and come after Me, can not be My disciple." Not 
the pretty trinket of gold, silver, or precious 
stones, that Laodicea hangs about her neck, but a 
true cross, on which the w r orld may any moment 
make a martyr. Not that denial of self that San 
Francisco shows w T hen she spends $1, 750, 000 every 
year on candies; nor that denial of self that New 
York's young women show, when they spend yearly 
more than $6,000,000 on chewing gum, being 
$500,000 more than the nation's combined contri- 
butions to the salvation of the world, abroad and 
at home. Judaism will rise in the Judgment 
against such Christianity and condemn it; for the 
Jew gave his 10 per cent to Jehovah; and when 
the sanctuary in the wilderness was being erected, 
Israel had to be restrained, because of the super- 
abundance of their offerings. 

The essence of this spurious Christianity of 
Laodicea is Self. Examine her works, and you 
will find that they all harmonize with self-pleasing 
and self-indulgence. Inside are the cushioned 
pews and the comforts of a drawing-room, a wor- 
ship accommodated to the flesh, a worship that 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 71 

pays cash and gets a certain "value received" in 
paid singers, paid instrumentalists, paid sermons, 
and paid prayers. Outside is the Lord. Look at 
His hands. Has Laodicea any experience of 
wounds ? And look at His feet : yea, and at these 
marks of thorns. And in His side there is a 
wound where the spear went through to a heart 
that was broken, because < l He came to His own, 
and they that were His own received Him not." 
It was the professed Church that crucified Him, 
and it is the professed Church that is crucifying 
Him afresh to-day, and putting Him to an open 
shame before the infidel and the heathen. The 
saloon, the house of impurity, and the gambling 
hell, are the coarse works of the Devil ; but the 
unconverted "church" is his masterpiece. It will 
make more infidels and criminals than an Ingersoll. 
What a revelation lies in the awful fact that of * 
every 10,000 criminals in English prisons, 6,000 
— six out of every ten, were once scholars in Sun- 
day-schools ! And the conversion of the children 
is no more the direct aim of teachers here than it 
is there. < ' If even the salt has lost its savor, 
wherewith shall it be restored ? It is neither fit 
for the land nor for the dunghill. Men cast it out. " 
Christendom is thus, like Judaism, terminating 
in failure as a testimony. But if the light that is 
in Christendom be darkness, how great is the dark- 
ness ! To her belongs the ignominy of having be- 
come in addition a corrupting and destroying 
influence. Instead of saving, her principal study 



72 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

just now is how most effectively to destroy both 
soul and body. 

The European nations of Christendom stand 
to-day watching one another, with their fingers on 
the triggers of their guns. I leave out of our for- 
mer reckoning, Turkey, in whose religion war is a 
consistent item, and I find that the wholesale 
human butchers of those European countries that 
call themselves Christian, number, on what they 
term "a peace footing," 4,617,000 men. This 
enormous host would give Christendom 5 men, 
armed for slaughter of their professed brothers in 
Christ, for every letter of the New Testament, 
the message of peace from God to man ; and there 
would be a small reserve of 425,000 remaining, 
after the 5 butchers had been detailed off to sup- 
ply the final "n" of the " Amen" that closes the 
book of the Revelation. So much for the peace 
footing of the land forces only. And on what 
these Christian nations call a "war footing," that 
is, including the reserves that experience of one 
another's Christianity in the past has dictated as 
prudent, these land armies would number, at the 
very lowest estimate, 21,226,000. 

Christendom, the special domain of the Prince 
of Peace, is to-day, except in these States, one 
vast war camp. Appolyon, the Destroyer, and his 
angels, have never since the days of Cain seen such 
cause for rejoicing — such a gathering of men, 
such training in the art of slaughter, such perfec- 
tion of appliances for the destruction of the body, 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 73 

and it may be said in most cases of the soul at the 
same time, such prospective horrors and burdens 
innumerable, mutilations, diseases, crimes, heart- 
breakings, fatherless children, and widowed 
mothers. 

Was it not to the representatives of the Church 
of His day, that our Lord said, < < You are of your 
father the Devil, and the lusts of your father it is 
your will to do. He was a murderer from the be- 
ginning " ? But these Jews were more righteous 
than Christendom, for they never professed a gos- 
pel of peace. 

And we in this country have among us this same 
spirit of Cain, who ' < was of the evil one, and slew his 
brother. " The graves are still green in our national 
cemeteries, where 300,000 bodies, slain by the hands 
of brothers, lie awaiting the resurrection of life or 
the resurrection of judgment. The nation that 
prays to God in its Congress, and imprints the name 
of God and its trust in Him upon its coins, might 
surely have been expected to have conducted its 
warfare upon Christian principles. 

I see the opposing forces. I hear the cry of, 
u Chaplains to the front!" They kneel together, 
and the armies kneel with them — Union and Con- 
federate. And the old prayer comes from tens of 
thousands of lips, < < Our Father who art in Heaven, 
hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy 
will be done, as in Heaven, so on earth. Give us 
this day our daily bread. And forgive us our 
debts ; for we also have forgiven every one who is 



74 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

indebted to us. And bring us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from the evil one. Amen." Then 
a chaplain from the South, being out of courtesy 
given precedence, says, < ' Let us examine the word 
of the God in whom we have till now trusted, and 
see what His regulations are for the settlement of 
the disputes of Christians — whether by fire and 
sword, or otherwise : " 

1 ' Blessed are the peace-makers : for they shall 
be called sons of God." 

< ' Resist not him who is evil : but whoever smites 
you on your right cheek, turn to him the other 
also." 

< ' Love your enemies ; do good to those who hate 
you; bless those who curse you; pray for those 
who persecute you: that you may be sons of your 
Father who is in Heaven ; for He makes His sun to 
rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the 
just and the unjust." 

' l If you forgive men their trespasses, your 
Heavenly Father will also forgive } t ou. But if you 
do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will 
your Father forgive your trespasses." 

* Q A new commandment I give to you, That you 
love one another : even as I have loved you, that 
you also love one another. By this shall all men 
know that you are My disciples, if you have love 
for one another." 

Then a chaplain from the North remarks, < ' With 
all due deference to the brother who preceded me, 
I cannot say that the passages he has just read 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 75 

seem altogether appropriate to the commencement 
of a battle. To raise our spirits I will now give 
out a hymn, in which all the regimental bands will 
assist, and so familiar that not a soldier on either 
side need be silent: " 

" Safe in the arms of Jesus, 

Safe on His gentle breast: 
There, by His love o'ershaded, 

Sweetly my soul shall rest. 
Hark ! 't is the voice of aDgels, 

Borne in a song to me, 
Over the fields of glory, 

Over the crystal sea. 

" Safe in the arms of Jesus, 

Safe from corroding care, 
Safe from the world's temptations; 

Sin cannot harm me there. 
Free from the blight of sorrow, 

Free from my doubts and fears ; 
Only a few more trials, 

Only a few more tears ! 

" Jesus, my heart's dear refuge, 

Jesus has died for me ; 
Firm on the Rock of Ages 

Ever my trust shall be. 
Here let me wait with patience, 

Wait till the night is o'er, 
Wait till I see the morning 

Break on the golden shore. " 

And I behold that meeting for murder on Chris- 
tian principles closed in tears, and with the bene- 
diction of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
Would that it had been more than a vision. 



76 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

But another irritant evil is in our midst, a cor- 
ruption of Christendom which will come to an 
issue in the near future ; and whether the settle- 
ment will be on Christian principles or by blood, 
God knows. Christianity is essentially communis- 
tic, and its communism is of Grace, flowing inevi- 
tably from that communism in which our Lord makes 
us partakers of everything that He has — His cross 
below, His throne above, and His " all things." 
< < You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He 
became poor, that you through His poverty might 
become rich. ... If the readiness is there, it is 
acceptable according as a man hath, not according 
as he hath not. For I say not this, that others 
may be eased, and you distressed : but by equal- 
ity ; your abundance being a supply at this pres- 
ent time for their want, that their abundance also 
may become a supply for your want ; that there 
may be equality." (2 Cor. 8:9, 12-14.) We 
read of those happy days of the Church's first love, 
< ' The multitude of them that believed were of one 
heart and soul : and not one of them said that 
aught of the things which he possessed was his 
own ; but they had all things common. . . . 
Great grace was upon them all. For neither was 
there among them any that lacked : for as many 
as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, 
and brought the prices of the things that were 
sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet : and dis- 
tribution was made unto each, according as any 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 77 

one had need." They but followed the inevitable 
conclusions of our Lord's teachings, as applied to 
their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and became as 
servants waiting for their Lord. 

But since the communism of Grace has been 
forsaken by an apostate Christianity, another com- 
munism has arisen which knows neither Grace nor 
Law, and which is to-day developing as rapidly as 
is the corruption of Christendom. That a crisis 
will come, and that very soon, no one need ques- 
tion. Millionaires are rapidly multiplying, so that 
half of the wealth of the United States is to-day 
in the hands of about 25,000 people. This con- 
centration of wealth is at the expense of the 63, - 
000,000 of our population, who become every day 
more exposed to the tyranny and demoralization of 
the money power. u Jehovah will enter into judg- 
ment with the elders of His people, and the princes 
thereof : It is you who have eaten up the vineyard ; 
the spoil of the poor is in your houses : what mean 
you that you crush My people, and grind the face 
of the poor? saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts." 
(Isaiah 3:14, 15.) We in California understand 
what the eating up of the vineyard means. It 
only requires the upper jaw of a soulless Railway 
monoply with eating-up rates of freight, and the 
lower jaw of a soulless mortgagee, with an eat- 
ing-up rate of interest. New York, Chicago, and 
all our big cities, know what grinding the face of 
the poor means. And the evil is aggravated, and 
the day of vengeance made more sure, by the way 



78 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

our population is abandoning agricultural pursuits 
and nocking into cities. In 1790, 3 in every 100 
lived in cities ; in 1890, it was 29 in every 100. 
The " grinding" is as bad in the Mother country. 
I read the other day of a manufacturer there, a pro- 
fessing Christian, and "worth" at least $5,000,- 
000, who pays his young women employees 5 
shillings ($1.22) per week: that is, they have 
about 17 cents a day, and are left to make up the 
balance necessary for existence, as they can, amid 
the temptations of a large town. It is well known 
in London that young women in some of its high- 
toned establishments, are expected to supplement 
their admittedly insufficient wages by immorality. 

"G-o to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your 
miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches 
are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 
Your gold and your silver are rusted ; and their 
rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall 
eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treas- 
ure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the la- 
borers . . . which is of you kept back by fraud, 
crieth out : and the cries of them . . . have en- 
tered into the ears of the Lord of hosts." 

How many are slain every year by Mammon, 
this chief god of Great Britain and the United 
States — broken down in the battle for bread, worn 
out trying to make a mere living, killed at last by 
the competition that takes the very crust from their 
mouths ! Strong drink slays every year in these 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 79 

two nations 275,000 souls, but an immense number 
of the slain by Bacchus should rather be added to 
the victims of the greater god. 

Christendom will not only squeeze the life out of 
her own flesh and blood at home, but she will slay 
the heathen abroad, if there is only money in it. 
And so she ships every year to Africa in the pro- 
portion of 70,000 barrels of rum, as an offset to 
every 1 missionary sent there. The rum is about 
the vilest poison ever manufactured, but there is 
all the more profit in it. In the good Christian 
State of Massachusetts is the largest distillery in 
the world. Its output every day in the year is 90 
barrels of 43 gallons each. This would represent, 
per year, 32,850 barrels and 1,412,550 gallons. 
The greater part of this is "rum," that goes to the 
coast of Africa. And this Christian nation draws 
a yearly revenue from that distillery alone of 
$1,090,179, or more than 1^- cents per head of our 
population. Thus the nation gets refunded, by 
this one distillery, more than one fourth of all it 
spends for the conversion of the heathen to its rum- 
selling Christianity. So, when we sing that mis- 
sionary hymn about " Afric's sunny fountains," let 
us not forget that our Christian civilization has at 
last found out the poor heathen, and opened for 
him fountains dark and foul with the Devil's water 
of death, sold at a good profit. The entire revenue 
from distilled liquors of this nation that worships 
Mammon, while she puts "In God we trust" on 



80 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

her coins, is about $63,000,000 per year, equal to 
about $75 for every letter in the New Testament. 
Truly a hellish revenue for a Christian nation. 

The country whose Queen defends the faith, is 
in no way behind the United States in corrupting 
the heathen. Her chief ecclesiastical dignitary, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, received lately 
from a native of Congo, Africa, a letter which 
reads as follows : < ' Great and good chief of the 
tribe of Christ, greeting : The humblest of your 
servants kisses the hem of your garment and begs 
you to send to his fellow-servants more Gospel and 
less rum — Ugalla." 

But the heathen Chinese might tell the heathen 
African that there was something even more deadly 
than that vile rum, even the poisonous drug, opium. 
This, Christian England forced upon China by a 
war, upon a nation representing one third of the 
population of the world, to the most sure ruin of 
the body, for the opium vice is an almost hopeless 
one, and to the as sure ruin of the soul, according 
to England's most orthodox belief. And let it be 
noted, that the very same treaty which binds China 
to receive the English opium, binds her also to 
protect the English missionary. There is a blas- 
phemous look about this ; or is it a shrewd attempt 
to do a good turn for God, while engaged in the 
active service of the Devil ? If we look at the de- 
scription of Babylon, in chapter 18 of the Bevela- 
tion, we see a list of her merchandise. Gold 
heads the list, Silver, second, and so on till we come 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 81 

to the second last item, which is Bodies, and the 
very last item is Souls of men. Babylon has for 
her mother, Laodicea, and for her father, the 
world ; and she combines the features of both. 

English Christians are to-day knocking at the 
door of Parliament to see if this reproach cannot 
be wiped away; though the evil has now spread 
and multiplied, and come home to roost with Chris- 
tendom — foul birds of many varieties. But the 
answer they get is, that England cannot afford to 
do what is right — the finances of India not being 
in a flourishing condition, and the revenue from 
opium being such a very considerable item. For 
the Christian rulers of India send every year to the 
heathen Chinese 5000 tons of this deadly poison. 
In chemists' weight, this quantity equals 78,400 
millions of grains, or enough to place 93,513 
grains on every letter of the New Testament of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is what Eng- 
land gives these 400,000,000 of people in return 
for their genial tea, that refreshes many a weary 
Christian. And I do not wonder that the unen- 
lightened Chinese, sitting in darkness, and not en- 
joying the advantages of gospel light, are begin- 
ning to call this hellish drug, " Jesus opium." 

Christendom can never compare in missionary 
zeal with the old scribes and Pharisees, for they 
" compassed sea and land to make one proselyte; " 
but a comparison might be instituted when our 
Lord adds, i < And when he is become so, you make 
him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves." 
6 



82 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

If it was "Woe" to these hypocrites for that re- 
tail business, what shall it be for this wholesale 
business of damnation in which the two foremost 
nations of Christendom are engaged? 

6 < If the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be 
salted ? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to 
be cast out and trodden under foot of men." Pro- 
fession means to-day that professors may mingle 
year after year with non-professors, and these be 
not only unaffected for good, but in all probability 
still further corrupted ; for nothing is so corrupt- 
ing as a corrupt Christianity. Laodicea has shown 
the world which she loves, the wonderful adapta- 
bility of her religion : how the bank-president may 
swindle the widow and the orphan, and all the 
more readily from being at the same time a Sun- 
day school superintendent ; how the employer of 
labor may cut down wages, and with the dollars 
saved build a church ; and how the grocer may 
slowly poison his customers with adulterated 
goods, or more quickly with liquor, cheat in weight 
and measure, and yet sit down at the Lord's table, 
as one who has a personal acquaintance with the 
spotless Saviour. 

I do not wonder that the Lord puts the question, 
< < When the Son of man comes, shall He find faith 
on the earth?" The " churches" are the whole- 
sale manufacturers of infidels ; and worldlings 
very sensibly argue that if church members can do 
such things, consistently with profession, they, 
who make none, may go even farther, 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 83 

Truth, when it comes in antagonism with popu- 
lar prejudice, is always unwelcome. It was un- 
welcome when Christ spoke it to the religious 
world of His day : it is as unwelcome to that 
world in 1893. Our ecclesiastical systems, and 
our entire collection of traditions received from 
the past, have become so incorporated in our social 
life that to speak against them is like speaking 
against one's self. Mere religionists will scarcely 
believe a word said against a Christendom clothed 
with all the prestige of age, custom, associations, 
tender memories, and their own personal connec- 
tion. But Slavery, with all its wrongs and mis- 
eries, was also a domestic institution, part and 
parcel of the social life of many of our sister 
States, and with some recognition in the very Con- 
stitution of this Christian nation. And the truth 
about Slavery was excessively unpalatable to very 
many before the war. Nevertheless the unpalata- 
bleness did not alter the truth nor obviate the 
crisis. 

Nor can the truths now stated be affected be- 
cause of their unpalatableness, nor can a com- 
ing crisis, that is, the rejection of Laodicea, be 
averted. Laodicea is unpalatable to the Lord : 
" I will spue thee out of My mouth." He Him- 
self draws the curtain from her, and reveals her 
much talk and much self-satisfaction — the big 
"I" being her starting point : " Thou sayest, I." 
Here is the very opposite of true religion. For 
true religion says, I am nothing, but my Jesus is 



84 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

everything. Laodicea says, ' < I am rich, and have 
gotten riches, and have need of nothing." There 
is no room for Jesus in her house : His place who 
for our sakes became poor, is to-day as at His first 
coming, the place of an outsider. 

But after the language of the world, which she 
speaks, Laodicea is rich. It is gold inside, and 
Jesus outside ; it is much goods laid up within, 
and "the unsearchable riches of Christ" without. 
Kich indeed is Laodicea in superfluities — jewelry, 
fine furniture, handsome houses, dainty food, 
costly apparel : while He stands outside the door, 
knocking and unattended to, who set us an example 
of voluntary poverty, in order that the many might 
become rich. Will any one venture to calculate 
how many times the missionary money given by 
the two chief nations of Christendom would need 
to be multiplied in order to equal the sum total of 
their superfluities ? And the amount of their 
actual waste must be something appalling. It is 
said that in the United States the food waste alone 
would suffice to feed all the millions of Europe. 
Rich also is Laodicea in intellectual and even 
cultured preaching. Culture is her idol, and car- 
ries its own condemnation in its barrenness. It is 
to pulpit and pew that which fills the place of the 
rejected Holy Spirit. It is a glamour of light : a 
Devil's sunshine to hasten the ripening of Chris- 
tendom for judgment. 

There is a story told of Thomas Aquinas and 
the Pope. After showing Aquinas over the im- 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 85 

mense treasures of the Vatican, the Pope re- 
marked : < < You see, Thomas, the day has departed, 
when I could say with my great predecessor, 
< Silver and gold have I none.' " " Yea," replied 
Thomas, < < and likewise has the day departed when 
your faith could add, i But what I have, that give 
I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth 
— walk!'" 

The power has departed from Laodicea, but she 
" has need of nothing" from the Lord. She has 
no need of power, for she has no testimony to give. 
Nor has she need of the Spirit as Comforter, for 
Laodicea long ago ceased to mourn an absent 
Lord. Nor does she need the Spirit to give char- 
acter to her worship, for that is fleshly ; nor 
as an inspiring power therein, for the services of 
Laodicea are rigidly mechanical. 

1 l If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is 
none of His." As surely, if any church has not 
the Spirit of Christ, it is none of His. And it 
would be nothing short of blasphemy to say that 
the church system of to-day reflects the spirit of 
its professed Lord and Master. The reflection is 
not from above but from below. If I see one 
spirit conspicuous and growing, it is the spirit of 
irreverence. And if you say that Love may co- 
exist with irreverence, you say what is a moral 
impossibility. For Love is ever reverential : it is 
her very nature. You know that when the love of 
a man for a woman is true, that from the crown of 
her head to the soles of her feet, she is sacred ; 



86 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

sacred also in all her belongings ; the very air she 
breathes seems holy ; and her name is not to be 
lightly uttered. If it be so with what is but a 
spark from the Divine love, how much more with 
the Divine itself ? The irreverent man is one who 
never knew what it was to love the Lord Jesus ; 
whose heart never saw Gethsemane or Calvary, and 
knows nothing of waiting for the coming again. 
The conclusion is evident as regards the flippant, 
jesting, irreverent Christianity that is around us. 
God will not suffer this to continue. If you want 
a sure sign of approaching judgment, here it is in 
this profane impertinence. And if you want a 
sure sign of the corruption of Christendom, here 
it is in this foul gas rising from it. 

The higher the organism, the more unbearable 
is its corruption. The decaying leaf is bearable ; 
the rotten egg is offensive ; the corruption of the 
human body is unbearable. But how unspeakably 
offensive, how absolutely unbearable, should be 
corruption in the domain of the spiritual. Eeason 
tells us that it undoubtedly ought to be so ; and 
that it is not so, only proves how blunted are our 
moral sensibilities. 

When the dead body is becoming offensive 
through corruption, we put it away from us. And 
the Lord will do the same with the moral corrup- 
tion of Christendom. Shall we say that Laodicea, 
revealed to us as its last stage of profession, is not 
yet corrupt enough for judgment and burial out of 
sight ? Grace still knocks at the door ; but for 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 87 

how long ? One day (and the rapid progress of 
corruption tells us that the day is at hand), there 
will be no one outside the door of Laodicea. The 
outsider, the Holy Spirit, will be gone. The out- 
sider, the Lord Jesus, will be gone ; likewise the 
the outsider, the Church which is His body. 

A RETURN TO FIRST CONDITIONS. 

In passing to this new heading, I feel relief. J 
have been night-watching, sadly and wearily, be- 
side the bed of one on whom corruption has al- 
ready set its seal — dying, and yet knowing it not. 
I have seen the lamp of life going out amid the 
fog of the world's opiates, and the deadly atmos- 
phere of its stimulants : for the world, when it 
comes to the facing of death, thinks it kind to 
cover the eyes, and dull the senses, and say, Believe 
it not. It is just at the brink if ever, that the soul 
is allowed to wake up with the cry of despair, My 
lamp is going out ! But I now pass out into the 
open air, and, climbing one of the hills of God, be- 
hold in the east the Morning Star, and below in 
the horizon the soft gleam of dawn. 

God brings us back every twenty- four hours to 
morning. And if we could better perceive with 
the eyes of our hearts, we would better understand 
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in their great 
work of Restoration. Does God take from us the 
light of day ? it is to restore it more sweetly in 
the morning. Does He take from us the light of 
our eyes ? the Lord restores the son to his widowed 



88 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

mother, the brother to his sisters, and the little 
girl to her parents, not forgetting, in the thought- 
fulness of love, to tell them to give her something 
to eat. And if He has taken away from His 
Church the light of His countenance, in bodily 
presence, is there no sweet dawn of morning in which 
we shall again see his face ? We may as well ask 
if the lover who has gone to a far land can forget 
the lovelight in the eyes of his beloved ? These 
eyes will yet draw him back from the other side of 
the world. And will he not return who is the 
Fountain of that love, and whose going has been 
only to prepare a place for his own, and to come 
again to receive them to Himself ? As surely as 
to sleeping man He who slumbers not nor sleeps 
brings His sun again at an appointed moment, so 
to the Church, wakened from her slumbering and 
sleeping, comes the moment fixed from all eter- 
nity, when our Morning Star shall appear, and we 
shall rise to meet Him, changed into His very 
image. Then shall a spiritual creation repeat the 
gladness of the laying of earth's foundations, 
' ' When the morning stars sang together, and all 
the sons of God shouted for joy. " 

We have to do with One who is harmonious and 
consistent in all His workings. If I might venture 
upon a simile through which to convey my concep- 
tion of the workings of God towards His own, 
where they have free course, I would liken them 
to a river of love, proceeding out of the Heavenly 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 89 

throne — living waters of the Holy Spirit, going 
forth, permeating, enriching, vivifying the souls of 
the redeemed and the myriads of spirits whom we 
call angels ; and returning whence they issued, in a 
hallelujah flood of love and blessing for Him who, 
being the greatest giver, is therefore the happiest 
of all existences. And so it is written, " Of Him " 
(as the source), "and through Him" (as perme- 
ating all providences), "and unto Him" (return- 
ing to the heart of love, that is the Home of all 
His children), < ' are all things. To Him be the 
glory for ever. Amen." This blessed circle seems 
to be the thought of all God's dealings with every 
one who will only consent to be embraced within its 
symbol of eternity. There was a Paradise, and 
there was a wandering therefrom. But Israel, 
whether after the flesh or after the spirit, have 
never been alone. Love has always gone forth 
with them hand in hand. < l In all their affliction 
He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence 
saved them: in His love and in His pity He re- 
deemed them; and He bare them, and carried them 
all the days of old." And the circuit closes with 
a return to a restored Paradise, divinely surpassing 
that which was lost. Or we see a fold, and a sheep 
that has strayed therefrom. But all along its 
wandering way the Shepherd follows it until He 
finds it. And the circle closes thus: "He restor- 
eth my soul ... and I will dwell in the house of 
the Lord for ever." We thus see that a return to 



90 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

first conditions, and with intensified characteristics, 
signifies the termination of one of God's circular 
histories. 

In Music, the keynote of the opening bars may 
suffer many transitions, and there may be many 
apparent wanderings from the first « « motive, " or sub- 
ject ; but towards the close (and we know it is near- 
ing the grand finale because of this), there is a return 
to the original key and to the original motive, in a 
manner suggestive of the near closing chords. 
Thus, if he who has the spiritual ears to hear will 
listen to the manner of the song of redeeming grace 
that the Church is to-day singing, he will know that 
the end is near. 

There never was music heard in this world like 
the music of the voice of Jesus, telling of free grace 
all the way to Calvary : <■ l Come unto Me, all you 
who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. " The music has a plaintive ring on that 
night of rejection when, after His promise to come 
again, and the supper that is to continue as a re- 
membrance till He come, our Lord sings a hymn with 
His own before they go out to the Mount of Olives 
— He to agony, shame, death, and burial. And 
since that night there has continued all through the 
ages the music of Grace, though often mingled with 
discordant sounds, caused by transition to the in- 
harmonious Law, by those who understood not the 
spirit of their Dispensation ; and heard for the most 
part through comparative darkness as the songs of 
God's nightingales — in the iron cage, in the desert, 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 91 

and on the mountain side. But in these days the 
discords are dying away, and we hear the music 
swelling majestically on the old true keynote of 
(Jrace — in rich chords on the original motive of 
< 'Whosoever will," so full, so strong, so sweet, that 
we know that it is to closing chords that we are lis- 
tening. We know then that the day is near when 
we shall be caught up together, and the music shall 
return in the Father's house into the hands of the 
great Choirmaster, even as it is written, "In the 
midst of the Church will I sing Thy praise." 

What a wonderful change has come over both 
the songs and the music of the Church. It is not 
many years ago that Christians seemed to consider 
their hymns of praise incomplete, if the last stanza 
did not contain a reference to the time "when 
mine eyes shall close in death," viewing that as 
the termination of the earthly pilgrimage, though 
the whole teaching and spirit of the New Testament 
was against them. Now-a-days, such hymns are 
rarely heard in gatherings of Christians, but on the 
contrary, hymns containing references to our blessed 
Hope are becoming more and more common. 

And in harmony with this change, the pathetic 
"minor" in the music is dying out before the 
jubilant "major." Not that the minor will ever 
die, except as a general outward expression. It 
has been as the tender wife who has carried on the 
business of the partnership with a certain charm- 
ing plaintiveness during the necessary absence of 
her lord. Not death then will it be. but transla- 



92 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

tion ; and in Heaven to endless ages the minor will 
be the individual expression of those true feminine 
elements which are blended in every soul of the 
redeemed — the gentleness and pathos of lowly love. 
But not only in character but also in degree 
do we see a revolution, some return of the time 
when "each one" in the primitive Church had a 
psalm, or hyron, or spiritual song, when they came 
together. Not many years ago, in orthodox Scot- 
land, the regular allowance prescribed by the 
minister to the worshipers, was 4 verses of a 
psalm, three times or at most four times during 
the service, with sermons averaging an hour, and 
prayers that made one think of those of whom 
Christ said that they expected to be < < heard for 
their much speaking" — for it certainly was not 
praying. But to-day Scotland, thanks greatly un- 
der God to this country, has changed all that ; and 
on both sides of the Atlantic we are becoming again 
a singing Church. The old austerity that seemed 
the necessary garb of religion, has given place to 
somewhat of joy, and "the spirit of heaviness" 
has been laid aside to a great extent for "the 
garment of praise." The psalms of the night, 
breathing of a by-gone Dispensation of law, judg- 
ment, and death, have given place to songs that 
speak of grace, redemption, life eternal, and a 
salvation ready to be revealed when Jesus comes. 
I am reminded of early mornings, when in the 
country, near a leafy thicket, I have heard, ere 
ever I saw a beam of the coming light, first a 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 93 

twitter and a few notes from some little hidden 
one of God's birds ; then another would join in ; 
and another and another would waken and sing : 
till in a short time, even before the sun was risen, 
there would be a full, glad chorus of these wee 
songsters, And so, with other birds of the Lord, 
the Holy Spirit is inspiring a fullness of praise by 
telling them that the dawn is near, when they shall 
spread their wings and fly to a land of light and 
gladness and everlasting song. 

Two sure signs of dawn are the singing of God's 
birds, and the spreading of His light. Since those 
days when it was possible for John to write, < ' You 
have an anointing from the Holy One, and you 
know all things," there has not been such a full- 
ness of light upon all things concerning the Lord 
and His Church. There is to-day fulfilled in a 
very remarkable manner the promise of Jesus con- 
cerning the Holy Spirit : < < When He, the Spirit of 
truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the 
truth : for He shall not speak from Himself, but 
whatever He shall hear that shall He speak, and 
He shall make manifest to you the things that are 
to come." The light that is with the wise virgins 
is one. It is at once the illumination of the Holy 
Spirit, and that illumination shining through in 
testimony to the world. I do not need to enlarge. 
I speak to those who understand : to others ex- 
planations are useless. The Lord puts just before 
the coming of the bridegroom the trimming of the 
lamps, so that with the wise virgins there may be 



94 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW, 

a return to the clearness of shining of the days of 
first love. And if we see something of this going 
on before our eyes, we need not be in darkness as 
to where we stand in relation to the time of the 
coming of Him we wait for. 

It is another return to first conditions that the 
Church to-day believes, as it has not done since 
Pentecost, in the Holy Spirit — the oil in the lamps 
of these wise virgins. It is a time of restored 
belief in Him as the only power for conversion, for 
personal holiness, for testimony, for guidance, and 
for all service. And there is a restoration of belief 
in His gifts and manifestations to the Church such 
as has not existed since these first days. Unbelief 
in the Holy Spirit has meant the utter powerlessness 
of the Church. But with the restoration of belief 
in Him as the same to-day as at Pentecost, comes 
as a natural consequence our understanding of His 
readiness to fulfill the very purpose for which He 
came, namely, to bestow gifts upon the Church 
and manifest Himself for comfort, cleansing, tes- 
timony, and service, in ways not ecclesiastical, but 
according to His good pleasure. Granted that the 
Holy Spirit is unchangeable ; granted that He was 
sent by our Lord to His own as an abiding presence 
and with a special testimony ; granted that that 
testimony is not yet accomplished ; granted that 
the church has to-day responsibilities and needs 
greater far than existed at the day of Pentecost : 
there follows the inevitable conclusion that our 
restoration of belief in the Holy Spirit can have 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 95 

but one consistent attitude, and that is, that we 
should, for the glory of our Lord in the Church 
and before the world, lay hold of the Spirit's will- 
ingness to give us a practical and abundant ac- 
quaintance with the truths in the following passage 
from His word (1 Cor. 12 :4-ll) : " Now there 
are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And 
there are diversities of ministrations, and the same 
Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but 
the same God, who worketh all things in all. But 
to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit 
to profit withal. For to one is given through the 
Spirit the word of wisdom ; and to another the 
word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit : 
to another faith, in the same Spirit ; and to 
another gifts of healings, in the same Spirit ; and 
to another workings of miracles ; and to another 
prophecy ; and to another discernings of spirits ; 
to another divers kinds of tongues ; and to another 
the interpretation of tongues : but all these worketh 
the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one 
severally even as He will." 

Inevitably, also, with this restored belief in the 
Holy Spirit, comes the restored looking not for 
death but for the Lord. For what has the Spirit 
to do with death? And if we have that Spirit 
within us, by Him formed into the Church which 
is the body of Christ, by Him linked to our Head 
in resurrection life — What have we to do with 
death? Death, as such, is forever " abolished," 
and even the existence of what is to-day to those 



96 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

who fall asleep but its shadow, is an irregularity 
and a contradiction in the Divine life that is within 
us. l < For you died, and your life is hid with 
Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall 
be manifested, then shall you also with Him be 
manifested in glory." Our position therefore is: 
In life; waiting for the manifestation of the fuller 
life. 

The crowning grace and fruit of the Spirit is 
Love; and the most beautiful of all the returns of 
these days to first conditions, is, first, the longing 
heart for our Lord's appearing, and then, the draw- 
ing together in heart of all the Lord's children, as 
they draw nigh to Home. Conferences multiply, 
and unions of all kinds — practical confessions 
that union and mutual help have not been found in 
the competing systems of many names which are 
of man, or, to trace their parentage farther back, 
of the Devil. We now look at a sectarian barrier, 
and say with David, < ' in the day that the Lord de- 
livered him," " By my God do I leap over a wall." 
We ask one another if the Lord's work at home and 
abroad would not be blessed beyond all experience 
if His own children would only work together in 
wise and loving co-operation, instead of showing 
forth the divided Christ of sectarianism, to His 
dishonor and our weakness before the adversary. 
We have at last got the length of shaking hands 
with all of the Lord's children, simply because they 
are the Lord's children, and therefore our brothers 
and sisters: so helping to answer our Lord's prayer 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 97 

before He comes (and high time, truly), c < that they 
may all be one." It makes us feel as if that happy 
dawn was again returning, when the Family was of 
"one heart and soul. " Can we continue the quota- 
tion? " and not one of them said that aught of the 
things which he possessed was his own; but they 
had all things common." We at least recognize 
that we are but stewards for our Master, and we 
are more or less seeking to advance the common 
good of the Family. If the Holy Spirit is thus 
bringing us back to the position of first love, it is 
significant as showing that He is to-day preparing 
us for the communism of an eternal Home. It is 
not to sects but to the one Bride that the Lord 
says, " Yea: I come quickly." And when we see 
the prophetic picture at the close of Revelation be- 
ing fulfilled, we may know of a surety that the 
Lord is at hand. 

Like a life that rallies all its powers ere it passes 
away, the Church is also returning to something of 
the fervor of its first proclamation of the gospel 
throughout all the world, and this within the last 
few years. Pardon a few personal reminiscences 
in illustration. There comes before me the first 
missionary meeting I ever attended — a children's 
meeting in an upper room in Edinburgh, Scotland. 
Two elderly ladies, who were organizers and con- 
ductors, received what money we had gathered for 
sending the gospel to the heathen ; and I do not 
remember that they did anything more ; except 
reading us something about missions, and making 
7 



98 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

an effort to sing a hymn — specially their stock 
missionary hymn, and the other two that they had, 
" There is a land of pure delight" and "Here we 
suffer grief and pain." The Church is poor to-day 
in missionary hymns, but at that time the leading 
sects in Scotland looked askance at all hymns, 
with the exception of the United Presbyterians, 
who had a large collection, while, strangely, their 
namesakes in the United States, descended from 
the same Scotch covenanting stock, refuse all 
hymns to this day. Scotch sectarianism, in its 
various " secessions," is a sadly curious study. 
Each " body " of course claims to be the true rep- 
resentative of the original church of the country. 
There lived, a number of years ago, in an isolated 
moorland village in Scotland, an old couple who 
made the above claim for their two selves. Tour- 
ists used to visit them as one of the sights of 
the district. The old wife would come to the 
door, and when asked if it was true that she 
and her husband were all that was left of the genu- 
ine church, she would heave a sigh and say : 
1 ' Aye, sirs, we 're a' that 's left of the guid auld 
Kirk of Scotland — just me and John." And then 
she would pause, and add in a confidential tone, 
" But indeed, sirs, I 'm no' quite sae sure of John." 
That " church," I understand is now extinct, and I 
hope that its spirit died with it. I certainly saw, 
from the English census returns of 1891, that in a 
certain town in Ireland, the statistics of religious 
denominations showed 1 of the " Open Brethren" 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 99 

and 1 of the "Close Brethren" — evidently not 
brethren dwelling together in unity. But probably 
they were relatives only in name, so that the Fam- 
ily was not disgraced by them. 

This has been a digression, but I was only 
giving my two dearly-remembered elderly ladies 
time to start their stock missionary hymn, and 
it did take them a good while. I do not need to 
say that it was, "From Greenland's icy mount- 
ains," sung by these two with much trembling of 
voice, and owing to their nervousness, always 
pitched in an impracticably high key. But, any- 
way, we children were too timorous to join in ; 
arguing, doubtless, that if our leaders were fright- 
ened, how much more ought we to be ? Never- 
theless, that meeting was a very bold move on the 
part of these two ladies. For at that time missions 
had not much prominence, and women workers 
were but little esteemed in Scotland. I may add 
that it was not till years afterwards that her 
churches gave their endorsement to the inspired 
Word by recognizing the gift of the evangelist, 
and for a man other than an "ordained" minister 
to preach the gospel from a pulpit seemed then 
something like blasphemy. I doubt not but the 
influence of these pioneer women had something to 
do with my being, later on, when a youth, a col- 
lector for Foreign Missions, making my rounds 
every three months to receive 3 pence or 4 pence, 
in a few cases 6 pence, and in one case, of 
which I was proud, 2 shillings. But 3 pence 



100 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

and 4 pence, that is, 6 and 8 cents, per quarter 
of a year, for the telling of the glad tidings of 
God's love to those millions in darkness, were the 
general contributions of "church" members, who 
were probably every day in the year wasting a 
great deal more on drink and tobacco. When I 
began, with some inherited timorousness, to argue 
for increased contributions, I was reproved, on the 
ground that it would do harm to the collection, 
made every month, and to which ten gave for 
my one, for the great scheme of the Free Church 
of Scotland — the Sustentation (ministers') fund. 
This is only about 25 years ago, but whereas then 
I could find no one who seemed to sympathize with 
my strong leanings towards Foreign Missions, I am 
conscious that the tide of missionary enthusiasm, 
even among my own acquaintance, has gone far 
beyond me. Probably, if the facilities and en- 
couragements of to-day had not been conspicuously 
absent when I was younger, I would have chosen 
for my life-work the noblest of all occupations in 
which man or woman can be engaged. But that 
probability has with me, but not, I hope, with you, 
reader, passed into the sad "might have been." 

Are you not amazed, Christian reader, at the 
great bound that this subject of Foreign Missions 
has taken within the last few years — leaping right 
into the hearts of so many of the Family, and con- 
straining our brothers and sisters to go, in ever in- 
creasing numbers. It seems as if the Church had 
just awakened to the fact that our Lord really 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 101 

meant what He said, when He gave the command, 
< ' Go ye. " Who ? Ministers ? They evidently do 
not think so, for they have not gone. Who minis- 
tered to Christ ? Pre-eminently women : they are the 
true ministers. And what means does God choose 
when He wants to l < put to shame the things that 
are strong" and to " bring to nought the things 
that are " ? Scripture tells us that He chooses < ' the 
weak things of the world" "and the things that are 
despised. " If missionary < < Boards " had been spir- 
itual enough to know the mind of the Lord, we 
would have seen ere this a grand foreshadowing of 
the fulfillment of that prophecy which concerns the 
time when Jerusalem will be the center of the world 
for missions, as for everything : < < The Lord giveth 
the word : the women that publish the tidings are 
a great host." (Psalm 68 : 11. R. V.) But even 
as it is, woman's part in proclaiming the glad tid- 
ings is to-day without a parallel since the days when 
women were recognized in the Church in the mat- 
ters of prayer, prophecy, and assembly service, and 
labored with Paul in the gospel. The day is past 
when an apology was needed for our sisters. The 
apology was needed when woman lost us Paradise, 
but no apology is needed for her endeavor to lead 
us back thereto by every power and gift bestowed 
upon her, not less than upon man, by the Holy 
Spirit. And a Dispensation whose spirit is essen- 
tially feminine, is woman's natural sphere of opera- 
tions. Grace is not the name nor the distinctive 
characteristic of a man. Sinai is masculine ; but 



102 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

Calvary breathes the feminine attributes of gentle- 
ness, meekness, patient endurance, self-sacrifice. 
And women are the best exponents of these virtues. 
They are God's reserve forces, whom He is calling 
up to-day, because the battle has come to a crisis. 
Childhood repeats itself in old age, and there is 
a return at the end of life to first conditions, in a 
second childhood. This, in a figure, is true of the 
Church. She is returning to more of that child- 
likeness of heart of which our Lord speaks : 
< < Verily I say to you, Unless you turn, and be- 
come as the little children, you shall never enter 
into the kingdom of Heaven ; " that childlikeness 
that can kneel with every brother and sister, and 
say these two wondrous words, "Our Father;" 
that childlikeness which dwells in the arms of 
Love, even as the beloved disciple exhorts : l ' And 
now, little children, abide in Him ; that, if He 
shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and 
not be ashamed before Him at His coming." 

THE SPECIAL URGENCY OF THE GOSPEL CALL. 

It is just what we would expect of God, that if 
He was closing on the world the door of free grace, 
and the hour was about to strike when the ' £ who- 
soever " would no longer have a Saviour and His 
salvation for the mere taking — it is just what we 
would expect of Him, that through the Holy Spirit 
He would stir up all His servants to proclaim His 
offer with special urgency. And this is just what 
we find to be the case. The gospel is being 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 103 

preached to the unsaved of the churches, and to 
the unsaved of the highways and hedges, and 
streets and lanes, with a vigor which is evidently 
inspired. It is, Come, and Come quickly ; < < for 
things are ready " in the Father's house, and we 
have just time to tell you and go. 

The Lord seems overabundantly willing to save 
any one just now : anxious to give every one a 
chance ere He shut the door. matchless grace ! 
that will even go and stand outside the door of His 
own professed house — apostate Laodicea — and 
say, < < Behold, I stand at the door and knock : if 
any man hear My voice and open the door, I will 
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he 
with Me." Christ is to-day preaching to the 
churches, not through their ministers, but through 
outside evangelists, who go all over the 'States, 
Great Britain, and elsewhere, preaching this last 
offer of salvation through faith, to congregations 
of professed believers ! This is one of the most 
extraordinary spectacles that the world ever saw, if 
people would only take time to think of it, and 
consider that the last position of Christ in con- 
nection with Christendom is being fulfilled before 
their very eyes. It is also the most sublime exhi- 
bition of Grace that was ever seen by fallen man 
— the closing offer of the day of the dispensation 
of God's love — Grace in sunset glory, crowned 
with her own radiance. 

It is the same with Foreign as with Home mis- 
sions. The Lord's servants are beginning to real- 



104 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

ize that it is not a case of, Who shall go ? but of, 
Who shall stay 1 or rather, as one said to me 
lately, Who dare stay ? 

< < Be patient therefore, brethren, until the com- 
ing of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waits 
for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient 
over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. 
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the 
coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5: 7, 8.) 
We saw the early rain at Pentecost; to-day we see 
the latter rain — thousands turning at the last call. 
As regards wind and weather, the world is wiser 
to-day than were the Jews of old, but can it any 
better than they discern the signs of the times? If 
it could, there would be a commotion. 

The special urgency of the Devil and his re- 
newed activity, mostly as a seeming angel of light, 
are also significant. He knows that his time is 
now short, and he is working hard. His presenta- 
tions of the future may be classed under one or 
other of two soul- destroying delusions — Material- 
ism, for the would-be-philosophic few, and Univer- 
salism, for the many. The latter is nothing but a 
repeat of his old lie in Eden — ' * You shall not 
surely die." The most numerous exponents of 
Universalism are the Spiritualists, who permeate 
and leaven the churches of these States, and claim 
10,000,000 of our population. But I hope that 
even to-day the estimate of 5,000,000, made some 
years ago, is nearer the truth. 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 105 

For further particulars of the activity of the 
Devil, and the urgency with which men and women 
are being hurried to Hell, as if there was fear of 
their arriving there too late — I refer to the daily 
newspapers of Christendom. 

CONVERGING LINES. 

If, in traveling by rail, we see on the right hand 
and on the left, numerous converging lines, we 
may safely argue that we are rapidly approaching 
a great terminus. The converging lines of argu- 
ment to which I have been calling the reader's 
attention are such as can be seen and understood 
by the mind that has had no special training. But 
there are other converging lines, belonging to the 
domain of science and prophetical exegesis. These, 
as regards any explaining of them, do not come 
within my purpose, which has been to advance 
reasons which were capable of verification by the 
ordinary reader ; whereas, were I to pass on to 
arguments, for the appreciating of which some 
acquaintance with astronomy, chronology, and 
other studies, would be necessary — the conclu- 
sions arrived at could never be so convincing to 
the average mind, because they would have to be 
accepted — not participated in. All that I want 
to draw the reader's attention to, is the very re- 
markable convergence of such arguments upon the 
conclusion at which we have already arrived. The 
shepherds came all together to Bethlehem, like so 



106 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

many simple arguments for the Coming. A great 
light from the Lord had shone round about them, 
and an angel had told them that the Saviour had 
come, and was that very night close at hand ; at 
which glad news suddenly a multitude of the 
Heaventy host appeared, and burst forth into a 
hymn of praise. Afterwards came Science and 
Learning, wise men of the East whose lines of 
travel converged on this same long-looked-for 
Jesus. We may not be able to grapple with the 
facts that led these wise men to a unanimous con- 
clusion concerning that star, but we can see the 
argument of their converging lines. Yet I like to 
think that the simple shepherds got there first, ar- 
riving at a conclusion which not wisdom but l i the 
Lord hath made known unto us." The lowly- 
minded are ever the wisest concerning the coming 
of the Lord ; for love dwells with them, and there 
is nothing so wise as love. 

I sum up much reading of the books of our wise 
men by saying, that the concensus of opinion as to 
the imminence of a crisis is wonderful. Inter- 
preters of prophecy, who were once notable for 
extreme divergence of views, are now very har- 
monious as to the rapid closing of this Dispensa- 
tion. Even the most careless might be sobered by 
the fact that among the most spiritual and intelli- 
gent of these interpreters, the amount of their 
divergence is only from now till 1901, for the 
shutting of the door of grace. And the conclu- 
sions of able Christian Scientists, from data of 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 107 

very varying character, are harmonious with such 
a near ending. It is clear from Scripture that it 
will not be given to the Church, any more than 
it was to those who were looking for our Lord's 
first coming, to know more than about the time. 
But that we may know. The Lord may now at 
any moment terminate the present condition of 
things as regards the Church, the Jew, and the 
world at large. 

There have never been wanting individual pre- 
dictions of a crisis, but this general agreement is 
very notable. And very notable also is to-day's 
general expectation throughout the Church, which 
has had no parallel since the days immediately 
preceding the first advent. The expectation that 
existed for some decades after Christ's ascension 
affords no parallel, for it was an expectation of 
decline — fading with first love. But the expecta- 
tion of to-day is one of increase, which has grown, 
within the memories of those now living, from a 
revived Hope, Faith, and Love, shared by only a 
few, to what is now a world-wide and ever-increas- 
ing looking for the coming One. We have, as at 
the first advent, those who specially watch — the 
religious seers, like Anna and Simeon ; and the 
religious scientists, like the Magi. And even as 
there was then over the whole empire of Borne the 
expectation of the advent of a Mighty One, so 
to-day even the godless nations who dwell above 
the ruins of that empire, are looking for a crisis 
and a " coming man." Many heathen nations also 



108 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

believe that a Messiah of some kind is now about 
to appear. 

A spirit of unrest is everywhere, suggestive of 
a coming chaos, out of which a new creation will 
be evolved. The sensitiveness of the public mind 
betrays itself every now and then in some sudden 
terror. Even nature seems to be becoming increas- 
ingly restless — pointing to the approach of the 
time when visible signs, — great earthquakes, fam- 
ines and pestilences, a darkened sun and moon, and 
falling stars — will proclaim to Israel the coming of 
the Son of man, "with power and great glory." 

It is suggestive that a tradition among some of 
the most ancient races, and which has evidently 
come down from a remote age, assigns to the world 
a duration of 7000 years — a week of millenniums. 
When Scripture speaks of the world, it means the 
inhabited earth. A mere globe of matter is not the 
world, any more than four walls and a roof is 
home. So it is outside the question how old the 
actual matter is, of which the earth is composed. 
It concerns us only that as the home of our 
race this world has existed about 6000 years ; 
and I think it very probable that the termina- 
tion of these 6000 years (which, of course, 
will be after the Church is removed), will be 
within a few years — one plausible calculation of 
a scientific man fixing their close at 1898 to 1899. 
The seventh 1000 years is the Millennial Sabbath. 
The Church, which is reckoned as a Heavenly peo- 
ple, works from rest, already entered upon : and of 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 109 

this our Lord's day, on the first day of the week, is 
a type. But the world is working toward rest : 
and of this the Sabbath of the Jew (an earthly peo- 
ple) is a type, being placed at the end of the week, 
like the world's millennial Sabbath. When that 
glorious day of 1000 years of rest shall dawn on 
the world, her millions, worn out and exhausted 
with the wars and burdens of the time of tribula- 
tion, will look to King Jesus, and see a fullness of 
meaning in His sweet words : l < Come unto Me, all 
you who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." 

So strangely does the mystic number seven enter 
into the workings of God, that if I were asked how 
long the world would last, I would feel very safe 
in saying this much, that its duration would be a 
matter of sevens ; and that very probably it would 
be a week of the days of its Creator, with whom 
"one day is as a thousand years." 

I need not say to any person of intelligence that 
there can be no millennial Sabbath in such a world 
as this, without the Lord's direct intervention ; 
and there comes before that the Day of the Lord, 
that "burneth as a furnace;" and before that 
again, the Lord Jesus will appear in the air and 
and say to His waiting people, "Come." The 
theory that some people hold, that this world is 
being Christianized and civilized up to a millen- 
nium, is so untenable, that I avoid making reflec- 
tions on their intelligence by presuming that they 
have only given a superficial consideration to the 



110 WHY IV E EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

subject. Christianity is at most but a light in a 
world's darkness ; and the civilization of unregener- 
ate human nature is but the varnish over the dry 
rot, the whitewash upon the sepulchre. An edu- 
cated devil is a devil still, and all the more harm- 
ful for his education. Human nature is the very 
same to-day as when Cain slew his brother. It 
will be when the judgments of the Lord are in the 
earth that the inhabitants of the world will learn 
righteousness, but the universal new heart will not 
probably be till the time of the new heaven and 
the new earth. As this is my last reference to the 
Millennium, let me here say that what follows it is 
foretold in the book of the Revelation from Chapter 
20, verse 7, to the end of the book, in Chapter 22 
— God's last word for us, and His best. The lan- 
guage is plain ; the meaning unmistakable. And 
though you, reader, may have read this wonderful 
passage ten thousand times it will refresh you to 
read it again. < c Blessed is he who reads, and 
they who hear the words of the prophecy, and 
keep the things which are written therein : for the 
time is at hand." Meantime, it is only the world's 
Saturday night, with its sin and folly, varnished 
or unvarnished. But the hour is late. How late ? 
The Magi had no written word to guide them — 
only a star. And were we wise enough to read the 
movements of God's great timepiece of the heav- 
ens, without doubt we would find that some vast 
circuit is again all but completed, and that we 
might even now see His star at its rising. But to 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. Ill 

us belongs the greater glory of the spiritual. It 
is no material star seen by material eyes, but the 
Star of Love seen by the eyes of Faith — even as 
it is written, < < Until the day dawn and the day- 
star arise in your hearts." If thus we can now say 
with the Magi that we have seen His rising star, 
the hour is at hand when, like them, we shall add, 
at our beholding of His face, < < and are come to 
worship Him." Meantime the lines keep converg- 
ing, and we are rapidly nearing the end of our 
journey. How near may we be?. 

We say often to one another, when making 
calculations for the carrying out of our day's en- 
gagements, "Can you tell me the exact time?" 
How solemnizing is the question as concerns the 
coming of our Lord, so that we may, in the remain- 
ing hours of our tarrying here, the more effectively 
and fully fulfill our duties, and < c be found in 
peace, without spot, and blameless in His sight." 
With what intensified force, at this late hour, come 
the words of Paul : < 4 Now it is high time for you 
to awake out of sleep : for now is salvation nearer 
to us than when we first believed. The night is 
far spent, and the day is at hand." I sat down to 
the writing of these pages, already convinced that 
it was but a little while ; but after being thus face 
to face with these reasons, thinking them out with 
much hindrance from the Devil as well as grate- 
fully-acknowedged help from above, I feel that we 
cannot now be sure even of a moment. On the 
eve of an Exodus more thrilling and sublime than 



112 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

that of Israel, when the depths of the ocean and 
the graves of the earth shall give up the dead in 
Christ, and there will join them the living saints 
— the laborer from the field, and the clerk from 
his desk ; the pale-faced woman from her sewing, 
and the nurse from the bed of pain ; the one that 
was kneeling in prayer, and that choir of praising 
ones ; the soundly sleeping, and those sleepless 
through suffering, and those that were about to 
die ; treasures of love and excellency, all gathered 
together ; changed in a moment, by beholding, 
into the very likeness and beauty of the Lord ; 
taken right up through the divided air to the other 
side, to homes of joy everlasting, — on such an 
eve, in the solemn shadows of our last hours in 
this old world that has been to us God's school- 
house and labor-field, we want to look at one an- 
other, and at God's work in us and through us, as 
we will do when we get home. 

1 < We know that we have passed out of death 
into life, because we love the brethren." But is it 
not a very strange love that will not sit down at 
the same table with the rest of the Family ? Our 
Lord prays that we may be one that the world may 
"know" and "believe." Then our unity must be 
manifested. A theoretical unity may satisfy the 
theologian, but it will not meet the requirements of 
the very practical kingdom of God. The world 
smiles at the theory: the Church sighs for the 
reality. When the "might have been" is forever 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 113 

past as regards this world, will not some of the 
tears that the tender hand of Jesus will wipe away, 
be shed because of backward looks upon our own 
lovelessness? We come together in occasional con- 
ferences, and say, c < How good and how pleasant 
it is! " And now and then we have the memorial 
supper of our Lord at the close of a conference ; 
and we say, How sweet it is to remember together 
our Saviour! But is not this what the Lord meant 
us to do " often," and not at rare intervals ? Is 
there any reason why you and I should not sit 
down, like the early Christians, every week at the 
Family table? Is there not rather every reason in 
favor that love and obedience can dictate? Must 
we wait till the walls of the Father's house enclose 
us, ere we break down these walls of the Devil 
that now separate the Family? In sitting together 
with the unconverted at the Lord's table, we are 
guilty, unless God helps, of their eternal mislead- 
ing; in having these sectarian Lord's tables we are 
guilty of casting a stumbling-block before the 
world ; and we know well what a weakening of soul 
and spirit, and body too, it is to have the Lord's 
enemies fraternize with us at His table, and to be 
separated from our own brothers and sisters by walls 
whose builder's name the world knows as well as 
we do. Once, the Devil scattered the flock as a 
wolf; now, as an angel of light, he persuades the 
silly sheep that they are doing God service in being 
very jealous of his honor in some particular of 
8 



114 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

fancied orthodoxy, religious or ecclesiastical. But 
the only qualification for the Lord's table, that 
gathering place for every brother and sister, is 
Love, and not a supposed orthodoxy. Love alone 
can remember the Lord: Love alone is orthodox. 
Why should there not be, in every city, and 
wherever else practicable, a central meeting place 
for the Family, where the communion of the Lord's 
Supper, whose duration of observance is { < Till He 
come," could be a weekly joy and refreshment? 
And why is it that the Church has departed from 
the original observance of the Lord's day from 
evening to evening, beginning on Saturday eve- 
ning which was the rule for 700 years after 
Christ ? We have neither Scripture nor conven- 
ience on our side — only heathen Rome, from 
whom we get our present reckoning, even as we 
got the names for the days of the week from the 
gods that our Saxon forefathers worshiped. And 
why again have we departed from the original 
evening communion ? John tells us " it was 
night" when the first supper was held; and Acts 
20 : 7 and 8, shows us the Church gathered to- 
gether to break bread in an upper room, with 
many lights burning, and Paul speaking on till 
midnight. And yet we accept a morning "sup- 
per"! Surely this is as absurd and unscriptural 
as it could be. If Christians would only search 
their New Testaments, instead of going by ecclesi- 
astical use and wont, it would be better for us all. 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 115 

Let the Church then be stirred up everywhere to 
have gatherings every Saturday night. What a 
beautiful appropriateness — " many lights" burn- 
ing, like the wise virgins' lamps in the darkness, 
the Family table spread, and the midnight hour 
approaching. Sweet indeed would it be if at such 
a gathering, as the bread was being broken or as 
the cup was circling round, the Lord Himself 
should suddenly appear, and we be caught up to 
meet Him in the air. Truly blessed would we be if 
thus found together, who are to be together with one 
another, as with Him we love, for ever and for ever. 
A number of years ago, when living in Scotland, 
I invited to a Christmas Eve meeting, on the sub- 
ject of the Second Coming, over 300 Christians, 
known to me or vouched for by friends, and repre- 
senting eight denominations. I announced, in my 
circular letter, that they would have, toward the 
close of the meeting, an opportunity which prob- 
ably they never would have again, of unitedly 
remembering the Lord in the Family supper. A 
most enjoyable and profitable gathering it was. 
Of the only two or three who did not avail them- 
selves of this novel opportunity, there was one, 
belonging to rather an exclusive sect, who wrote 
me, as his reason for non-attendance, that he did 
not see why, if these Christians could meet once, 
they could not meet always. Although his excuse 
was poor, his "why" was unanswerable. Why, 
indeed ? 



116 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

Would it be too much, not only to have gather- 
ing places where Christians from all the sects could 
meet once a week on the common ground that is 
round their Lords table, but, wherever there was a 
sufficient population, to have the gathering place 
open day and night till the Lord comes ? Would 
it be too much to have continuous praise, advent 
hymns and songs of the gospel, with reading of the 
word of God, specially as in the New Testament, 
and prayers for the Coming again, and intercessions 
for all who had need ? What a joy and refresh- 
ment would such a meeting be, and what a testi- 
mony to the world ! But would there be lovers of 
the Lord enthusiastic enough in their love to carry it 
on ? What ! Are we less enthusiastic than the 
singers under Judaism, who praised God in con- 
secutive choirs day and night in the Temple ? Are 
we less enthusiastic, for what we believe to be only a 
little while, than the servants of the Devil, who day 
and night, serve him ? I know of one of his saloon 
temples, whose doors have not been closed for 
thirty years — worshipers going in and out con- 
tinually, and contributing with a liberality of which 
the churches know nothing. 

Such high privileges may be enjoyed by us, the 
often disobedient followers of the Lord. But 
obedient ones, who have gone for Him into Hea- 
thendom, with their well-nigh solitary lamps, can 
only, unless in rare cases, look on from a distance. 
Therefore it surely becomes us that, in a very 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 117 

special degree, these noble spiritual kinsfolk of 
ours should have the strengthening and encourage- 
ment of our sympathy, expressed by deeds and 
constant intercessions. Our every furtherance of 
Foreign Missions helps to complete the testimony 
to all nations, and is therefore a furtherance of the 
coming of our Lord. He never promised the con- 
version of the world to His messengers. That 
reward is for Himself, in the day when it will be, 
not Jesus seeking the world, but the world seeking 
Jesus; when " all nations shall flow" " to the 
house of the God of Jacob ; " when "out of Zion 
shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord 
from Jerusalem." Our part is but the obedience 
that sows the seed. The harvest-home is not now. 
One Dispensation sows, and another shall reap. 
But to-day's glorious testimony must be, like the 
testimony of a united gathering, now, or never to 
all eternity. 

What will it be to look back from the end of the 
journey and the end of all opportunity, on a bar- 
ren " might have been ;" on a life of ease, where 
love and obedience called for Christ-like self- 
denial ; on foolish sowing of the seed on the 
gospel-hardened downward ways of Christendom, 
instead of wise scattering on those wide fields of 
Heathendom, where there were at least probabili- 
ties of fruit-bearing ! What will it be to have no 
spiritual children to call us blessed ; to have no 
" crown of rejoicing" before our Lord Jesus at 



118 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

His coming ; to hear no < < Well done, good and 
faithful servant," come from His lips ! 

" Ah ! who shall thus the Master meet, 

Bearing but withered leaves ? 
Ah ! who shall at the Saviour's feet, 

Before the solemn judgment-seat 
Lay down, for golden sheaves, 

Nothing but leaves ! Nothing but leaves ! " 

There was a gathering of dark-skinned children 
in a mission house, to commemorate its opening a 
year before. The little ones, in their brightly-col- 
ored dresses, sang gospel hymns that their teachers 
had worked hard to learn them ; and the mothers 
looked on, smiling with delight. But among them 
sat a sad-faced woman, with the tears running down 
her cheeks. At the close of the meeting, the 
teachers came to her, to know the cause of her sor- 
row. "Oh, why did you not come sooner," she 
said, "that my little boy might have been here?" 
And then she went on to tell how she had once a 
beautiful child, and that on the occasion of a hea- 
then festival, finding him a source of constant 
trouble, she had retired to a thicket and broken the 
back of the little one over her knee — throwing 
away the body to be devoured by the dogs. As she 
finished her awful confession, she burst into frantic 
screams of despair : i ' Oh, why did you not come 
sooner, that my little boy might have been alive, 
that he might have been here with these children ? " 

Why, reader ? Why, myself ? And our Master 
asks us, Why ? That darkened mind, with its 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. H9 

hard heart, was not so guilty as these enlightened 
minds, and these hearts that profess to have some- 
what of the love of God, but whose cold indiffer- 
ence made that crime and that sorrow possible. 
We dream over Foreign Missions. The awful 
necessities of the heathen have never yet taken 
possession of our souls. And they never will, till 
in obedience we come in personal contact with the 
work, no longer looking at it from afar, and per- 
haps remembering to thank God who made us to 
differ, as we read a story like this, or give a silver 
coin where Christ gave Himself. Where would 
the Mother country have been but for Foreign 
Missions ? It is not so very far back when our 
forefathers worshiped idols. The fires of the 
great god Baal (the Bel of Babylon) still linger in 
some far parts of Scotland and Ireland, under the 
name of Beltane fires, lighted every 1st of May ; 
and even the going through the fire is kept up. 
And in England the stones are yet standing of the 
temples of the Druids, silent reminders of the 
times when they worshiped the Serpent and other 
gods, and burnt alive in wickerwork frames even 
little children for sacrifices. Thank God that so 
long ago Christians had compassion on our fore- 
fathers, so that we had not to wait in darkness till 
the modern servants of the Saviour found time, 
and mustered love enough, to bring us the light. 

God grant to thee, reader, and to me, that with 
the zeal of those who know that every day is in- 
creasingly likely to be our last for service here. 



120 WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 

we may have no wish but to know His will and do 
it. It is a great matter to be saved from Hell : it 
is a greater matter to be saved from self, from a 
fruitless, self-seeking life. " He died for all, that 
they who live should no longer live unto them- 
selves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and 
rose again." 

" Keep my life, declared to be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. 
Keep my moments and my days ; 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise. 

" Keep my hands, that they may move 
At the impulse of Thy love. 
Keep my feet, that they may be 
Swift and beautiful for Thee. 

" Keep my voice, that I may sing 
Always, only, for my King. 
Keep my lips, that they may be 
Filled with messages from Thee. 

" Keep my silver and my gold : 
Ev'ry mite for Thee I hold. 
Keep my intellect, and use 
Ev'ry power as Thou shalt choose. 

" Keep my will, for it is Thine ; 
It is now no longer mine. 
Keep my heart — it is Thine own ; 
It is now Thy royal throne. 

" Keep my love : my Lord, I pour 
At Thy feet its treasure-store. 
Keep myself, that I may be 
Ever, only, all for Thee." 



WHY WE EXPECT JESUS NOW. 121 

Lord Jesus, let the lamps Thou hast given us to 
carry for Thee in the darkness be ever trimmed 
and burning ; and may these spirits, and souls, 
and bodies, which are Thine, be preserved entire, 
without blame at Thy coming. And now. Lord, 
hasten Thine appearing and the gathering of Thy 
children. Thine own call for Thee. We love 
Thee, and we long to see Thee. And Thou hast 
said, "Yea: I come quickly." Amen. Come, 
Lord Jesus. 



WORKS BY REV. F. B. MEYER. 

"Few books of recent years are better adapted to instruct and 
help Christians than those of this author. He is a man 'mighty 
in the Scriptures,'' saturated with Bible facts and truths and 
possessed with a yearning desire to help others.'''' — D. Iy. Moody. 

OLD TESTAMENT HEROES. 

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Abraham; or, the Obedience of Faith |i.oo 

Israel: A Prince with God i.oo 

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Hoses. The Man of God i.oo 

Elijah and the Secret of his Power.- i.oo 

4 'No writer of the present day is imbued with the spirit of 
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A Winter in North China, by Rev. T. M. Morris. 
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Feathers for Arrows; or, Illustrations for Preachers 
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1bOW tO 38eCOme a GbrfStiam Five Simple Talks. 

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1. Disciples or Scholars. 2. Believers or Faithfu 
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Zbe JfOUr /Ifoem By Rev. James Stalker, D. D., 
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£be ff irat Gbing in tbe TOorlD ; or, the Primacy 

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Dr. Gordon has rescued us from the danger of forgetting 
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Gbe l^ceengc ot Scene to flhen of TlOeaitb* a 

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©OWer trom On 1bi0b: Do You Need It, What is 

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'* Earnest, cogent, bright, this brief discussion must appeal 

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